Hudson ISD opens its grade books to parents - online

By: Nick Wade
The Lufkin Daily News

February 10, 2008

HUDSON - Hudson ISD is attempting to get parents more involved in their children's education by offering an online system that allows parents to monitor their child's attendance and performance in each class.

Through a management software called Skyward, HISD is able to grant access to online grade books and attendance records for each student. To ensure privacy, each parent wishing to view their child's online records must fill out a form in person before being given their own private password that enables them to log in to the system. Once they have logged in, parents can only see their child's statistics.

"I don't think any parent likes a surprise," said HISD Superintendent Mary Ann Whiteker. "This system allows parents to really stay on top of what students are doing in school."

Whiteker and other HISD officials have been looking into the online system for some time as a way of strengthening the communication between teachers, parents, and students.

"It is a system of checks and balances," said Hudson High School Principal Donny Webb. "Having the grades online ensures that the teachers will have assignments graded in a timely manner, parents will be able to see their child's grades on every assignment, and the students are able to access their own information and see what their class average is or how many absences they have in a certain period. The system is excellent, and helps us with our gaol, high school-wise, which is to improve communication with parents."

Webb went on to say that while he is pleased with the system, he does hope that more parents will begin to utilize it.

"Our parents that are onlihne love it," Webb said. "But that is only around one-third of our parents. I hope that as time goes on more parents get involved, because we really are providing them with great information and resources that will help them be involved in their child's education."

Since the online system has only recently been implemented by HISD, the number of parents that are using it is hovering around the 30-percent mark. Whiteker says that this number will only grow in time, with one reason being that parents must currently come on campus to get their password, whereas it will soon become part of the registration process.

"We will be able to make this part of our beginning of school process for 2008-2009," Whiteker said. "We understand that parents are busy and not everyone can make it to the campus to fill out these forms; so we feel like if we go ahead and provide them the forms while they are here before the school year starts, then they may be more likely to take advantage of the opportunity that we are offering."

In an attempt to increase the number of participants, parents have also been allowed to fill out the forms at Hudson basketball games.

"Our goal is to have all of our parents participating," Webb said. "This is a tool that continues communication with parents, not replaces it."

Following the theme of communication, HISD is also utilizing a cutting edge program called ConnectEd which allows principals and school administrators to record a voice message and send it to multiple parents at a time.