<p>Well, siserune, I think it depends on family dynamics. I know my parents--they aren't going to be more interested. They're just not--it isn't in their nature to be that in-depth. My father doesn't even look at interim report cards--he doesn't care what the grade in progress is. Some parents are, but that's in the family dynamics, in my opinion...I don't know that the online grade reports change anything. </p>
<p>I don't know...I see the potential for problems, but I don't see the doomsday aspect as you seem to see it. Plus, of course, if you are always behaving, your parents have no reason to breathe down your neck...(unless they truly are helicopter parents, which they would be whether or not they had access to online grades).</p>
<p>If you're talking about Powerschool, all of my children's schools have had it for several years now. I use it frequently -- that is, I check on my children's attendance and grades. I am less concerned about whether one of them has a 95 or a 98 than I am about tardies and 0's for failing to turn in work. Additionally, my daughter is not a strong student academically (she's an artist) and she really struggles with coursework. We have a lot of problems in middle school with teachers saying she was doing okay and then having her grades be very bad. </p>
<p>My understanding is that a "helicopter parent" is someone who hovers around the <em>teacher</em> and staff, not who is just involved with the child. I like Powerschool because it means I don't have to bother the teacher. If I want to know how my child is doing, I can just check online.</p>
<p>So, in our family's case, because having all assignments done is required to pass a course, my kids cannot go out on the weekends if there are any missing assigments. It sounds like compared to parents who just wait for report cards to show up, that I'm much more involved, but I think it's a positive thing for us. For example, my daughter struggles with test taking in particular. Using Powerschool lets me surprise her with a little money on her Starbuck's card when I see she's done well on a test.</p>
<p>Wow, reading the responses, I'm still really struck at the different in parenting styles! I can't imagine not knowing that my kids are going to get C's or D's until the report card arrived. I see it as part of my job as a parent to be aware of what's going on and adjust my parenting accordingly. For example, in February, my son was staying up too late and missing the best bus to get to school, so he was tardy several times in a row. His school expels students for not that many total tardies or absences, and he was getting close to that. Do I want to know <em>after</em> he loses his place at his school and has to go to another one? NO, I want to intervene before that happens! </p>
<p>I don't micromanage my children's lives, but I am a sort of lifeguard, and its my job to blow the whistle and tell them "Out of the pool!" before they drown. That includes bringing disciplinary strategies (like taking away IM access, grounding them, etc) to bear when they're struggling, rather than waiting until they sink to the bottom.</p>
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What are these parents going to do then: stalk their child's professors and place endless phone calls requesting to see some numerical proof that their child is living up to their parents lofty expectations?
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<p>Haha at an admittted student's day I was at a session for an undergrad b-school that's pretty well known, lots of very interested parents there. Anyway you apply at the end of second year so the topic of if you could do anything before then came up. And they said well, you can be part of this or that and there is an email list updating you about business related and networking events. So all these parents perk up and then the lady really fast was like "Uh, and sorry, parents cannot put themselves on the list, it's only for your kids". You could tell she had done this before. I was like, really? You really have to say that? My mom thought it was really funny too, because she said when she went to college there were no info sessions for parents like this, much less would they push their luck and already try to get on the email list before their kid was even admitted to this b-school...before their kid had even committed to attend to the entire university!</p>
<p>But yeah truthfully to be fair many people don't have much experience with this and at this point the kid is still in high school obviously. So that doesn't mean in a couple of months they won't figure out, you know, you really can't get on university email lists for students. Most will probably figure out their new role and deal with it. Although a few probably won't, but I don't think checking this service in high school necessarily implies they will be unable to cope with the college issues. Most people generally just go along with whatever power they have or are given. So if they are given access to this, they will probably check it, if out of sheer curiosity. At this point, parents of seniors somehow functioned 12 years without it. When they aren't given this power next year when their kids go to college they will just deal with what they get then.</p>
<p>Princedog, I agree that using access options like this in high school doesn't mean you're going to do it in college. I feel so strongly that college is about my son's decision making that I didn't go on campus visits with him. The first time I'll see his chosen college is when I drop him off in the fall! </p>
<p>I'm not worried about wanting to see his grades; that particular college doesn't provide them to the students, either!</p>
<p>wow, that system is terrible! This is coming from a freshman in college but still. Part of high school is learning the freedom you need in college. Having your parents breathing down your back about turning in an assignment or why you didn't turn a certain one in is counterproductive. Also, there is nothing wrong with skipping a little school here or there. High school is mostly a waste of time anyway.. sure maybe not to the uber smart kids, but I got my 3.60 and got into the school I wanted and probably had a lot more fun than many on the way.</p>
<p>I guess what I am really getting at is that high school is where you learn how to not need your parents... and this system is not teaching you anything. Use my skipping school example: that teaches you that going to class is actually sometimes important (not so much in high school because so many grades, etc.). So, in my first semester freshman year, I went to 96% of my classes because I knew there might be some important nuggets of info I couldnt get from a friends notes and came out with a 4.0.</p>
<p>My high school has that system. I am a straight-A student but my parents don't hover over me. They don't really ask how I do in a class because they know that I want to do well by myself. They gave me the email login and password that they got from the school and let me change it to the email and password of my choosing so that I can use it. They think it is a pretty useful system, but they think that progress reports and report cards are sufficient enough as opposed to supervising all of my assignments all the time. I personally love the system because I can see how I am doing in any one of my classes at any time. I guess it all depends on how much control one's parents need over their s/d's lives.</p>
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Also, there is nothing wrong with skipping a little school here or there.
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Sorry, here's where you lose me. I recognize that my kids own their own grades, and I'm more than willing not to check them online, since our school has a procedure in place to notify parents when trouble arises. Skipping school is a serious infraction that results in suspension in our hs. It requires some degree of lying, misrepresentation, or even forgery to accomplish. That's not okay with me, and I see a major difference between choosing to skip college classes you're paying mega-bucks for (when the school couldn't care less whether you attend or not), and skipping classes you're required to attend.</p>
<p>I see a difference between the two also. In college, if you skip classes, it's quite stupid because you are the one who chose to sign up for them in the first place. In high school, it's possibly not stupid at all because you are skipping out on something you never had any choice in. I don't expect somebody to feel a particular responsibility towards requirements they did not even have the remotest say in choosing.</p>
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Also, there is nothing wrong with skipping a little school here or there.
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Sorry, here's where you lose me.
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<p>Attendance per se is not the goal of high school, or so one hopes. Nor should school function as a jail. If the students want to walk about, let them.</p>
<p>Whats the purpose of suspending students who skip class??? Doesn't that send an incredibly counterproductive message? The administration takes you out of class for skipping class??? Its stupid to skip class, but siserune said, high school is not prison.</p>
<p>At my school it IS conditional to teacher approval. As in, 90% of teachers are on board, but the old-school ones who don't trust anything but a paper grade book are not and send normal paper progress report home every quarter.</p>
<p>As far as learning concepts etc, that argument is inherently flawed. A child who is not learning in a class must have a reason for doing so. It is possible that child is lazy, hates the teacher, or simply does not enjoy the subject. Forcing that student to stuff the knowledge down his throat is akin to force feeding him. Regardless, he will not retain that knowledge - he will cram for the tests, copy homework from friends, and simply work for the grade because he knows his parent are watching. Although this is great for those parents who want their children to attend the best college possible, it is also pointless. If a student is not learning in high school without being forced to, why should he change in college. If anything, with more independence and more distractions, the student will get worse - wasting the money spent sending him to the competitive school.</p>
<p>So, why bother? Not to mention that it is a compromise of privacy - it is not very difficult for students to find out each other's grades when they are all online (most programs "rank" students in the class - at least the one my high school uses does). I find it the ultimately hypocrisy that my high school does not "rank" students to colleges (no valedictorian, etc.) but every teacher ranks then right on their online progress report.</p>
<p>For my S, I never would have needed or used this system. He was responsible and generally communicative. If he wasn't doing well, there was usually a good reason and he would already be working to fix the situation.</p>
<p>My D, on the other hand, is a different case. She frequently deludes herself into believing that if she ignores something unpleasant it will go away. Also, she is definitely in that nasty teen-girl stage of wanting to run her own life by herself. She never gives me any information on how she's doing, and if I ask she says "I don't know" "I don't remember what I got on the test," or "The teacher hasn't given it back yet." She's very bright, so I know she remembers her grades. But since teachers do not allow kids to keep their tests anymore, it's not like I have had to sign them or can see the actual exam paper in her notebook. Consequently, the progress reports and report cards her freshman year have been surprises. Last marking period I was totally floored when she did much better than I expected in the classes I had an inkling she wasn't doing well in, and worse in the ones I thought were easy "A's". This could have been remedied with more information, I think.</p>
<p>So, I might be in favor of online access if it included really helpful information. The problems I'd foresee would be that many teachers are really, really slow in grading papers. They often wait until just before the end of the marking period to give things back. So, by then it's too late to fix a problem anyway. These are the same ones who put generic stuff on the progress reports ("satisfactory progress" which could mean anything from a C to an A+) Also, I agree that more important to me than the letter would be to see what exactly she's doing well in and what she may not understand. D is not the kind to resolve her academic problems. If she doesn't understand factoring in October, she still won't understand it when the final rolls around. A system that doesn't provide specific information about my child's deficiencies wouldn't help me with my D. I'd like at the very least a phrase describing the subject matter of the test for which the grade is displayed, such as "Romeo and Juliet Acts 1-3" or "Ions".</p>
<p>The charter school I go to (High Tech High, in case you saw it on Oprah last year) has used PowerSchool since it started 7 years ago. Students and parents can see if Little Johny didn't turn in his homework or has been ditching biology the last week (although parents get a call about that anyway).</p>
<p>My parents know that I'll get my grades up to A's if they ever drop down (and I can immediately see what I've been missing or need to do better on). With my older brother, it was a lifesaver for my parents to push him to get his work turned in and see the actual grades on assignments he'd ben getting. If parents want to use it to spy on their kids, they probably already try to call their kids' teachers for constant grade updates.</p>
<p>No, I don't agree that "there's nothing wrong with skipping a little class here and there". At my chldren's school, skipping class can result in expulsion. It also goes against our family policy, which is that school is "their job" as students. I don't want my children blowing off class any more than I would just not show up for a work shift myself. I also view it as disrespectful to the teachers. I am clearly "old school" about this, though.</p>
<p>i view the skipping think a little differently (as a HS SR)</p>
<p>if i can skip a class here and there(once a week or so), get an A, and still get a 5 or mabey a 4 on the AP exam...what's the problem? even if i'm in class, i'm not going to be "there".</p>
<p>My school does that, and I have to say, it's awful. My parents are constantly checking it online, and if I'm late with homework or dont do great on a test, they know. That may sound like a good thing, but before my school did it, I was perfectly capable of handling those issues myself, and I'm just as capable now. All my parents do is nag and add stress.
While this online checking may seem like a good thing, the only parents who could really use it for good are the ones that, sadly, don't really seem to care.</p>
<p>As a parent with experience as a high school and college administrator I have very mixed feelings about this. First, people never say "Thanks, that's all the information I need." We always crave more. Why not webcams in the hallways so you can check to see who your child's hanging out with between classes? After all, there's the real danger. Parents who get this information in high school feel unmoored and unserviced when their child's college doesn't provide similar information (which, btw, they can't - by law). I think this also allows teachers and administrators to abdicate their true responsibilities -- to understand the needs of each student and their parents and to be serving them in a personal way. Grades are a snapshot of a moment in time and never tell you what you need to know and what you can only learn from real conversations with your child and his/her teachers. Some parents need more information. Some parents, frankly, need less if their child has any hopes of someday taking responsibility for their own lives.</p>
<p>In the high school where I teach, a system like this is available, but teachers are not required to post grades in the system. I used to use it, and I liked it because it eliminated students' excuses about not being reminded that they had missing work.</p>
<p>However, I noticed that there was always a group in the class that was very competitive. Although the system uses a secret number and you can set it up to order the list by the secret number rather than by grade rank or alphabetically by the students' actual names, the students still always seemed to figure which grade was whose, and the constant coparisons and competition was troubling to me.</p>
<p>Then one day I ran into a mother at the grocery store and she started in wanting to discuss not only her own daughter's performance on a recent test, but she also starting rattling off grades OTHER STUDENTS had earned! She said something along the lines of, "Well, that test must have been really hard. I saw in the gradebook that Johnny only got an 87!"</p>
<p>I went straight back to school and deleted the file, and I haven't used the system since.</p>
<p>My school recently implemented a system like the OP described.</p>
<p>The reason they set it up?</p>
<p>Because parents had been bugging the teachers about grades and "issues" so much, that they didn't want to waste anymore of the teachers' time. So, they set up a website where parents can look at grades directly, and then bring up any matters with the STUDENT rather than the TEACHER.</p>