St. Cloud school district to boost parents’ access

By: Dave Aeikens
St. Cloud Times, Minnesota

March 1, 2009

Parents in St. Cloud school district will be able to keep a closer eye on their children’s studies next year.

The new student information system the district hopes to install and have ready by next fall would allow parents access to homework assignments and grades.

A few schools have software that allows that already. This will be the first time the district will have all 14 schools and all staff working from the same program.

In addition to what parents and teachers can do with it, the school district will use Skyward to track student attendance, enrollment, records, scheduling and demographic data it is required to send to the state.

It will cost $135, 738 to install and train staff. It then costs $47, 250 a year for the licensing.

Superintendent Steve Jordahl said that allowing parents to see how their children are progressing will be helpful.

“I really like that component of it,” he said.

The new system will enhance parent communication but will probably not replace phone calls, letters and parents meetings, Apollo Principal Charlie Eisenreich said. Some parents don’t have access to a computer.

It will allow for quick access to a student’s progress and provide opportunities to work with students before it is too late.

“Right now it goes so far into a trimester, some parents feel so far out of the loop trying to keep their son or daughter up to task and now that will significantly improve,” Eisenreich said.

Apollo has some teachers who put assignments on Web pages that parents can access, he said.

Jordahl said he wants access to student schoolwork online to be uniform throughout the district. He said teachers will be expected to have their assignments online by 4 p.m. each day.

The teacher expectations might have to be negotiated, teachers union President Mary Broderick said. Broderick said there needs to be discussion about training and how the system will be used.

“It’s something we think gives a lot of people a lot of good information. It needs to be something realistic and doable,” Broderick said. “We just want to make sure, when we do something districtwide, it has a good plan up front that we have the same kinds of expectations, training and we do it the same way.”

North Junior High School has had a system that has allowed parents some access to student assignments and grades for three years, Principal Bob Huot said. He said the system North is using could be better and he is looking forward to a new system.

“I think it is one more way of letting parents know what is going on, whether their student is doing the work,” Huot said.

“You struggle in your day to find ways to communicate with parents. This was one way we felt parents could in their own time get on the Internet and find out what is going on with their students.”

Eric Williams, principal at South Junior High School, said he is looking forward to having the new system.

“The new student information system will be a little intuitive and parent friendly,” William said.