Dallas ISD goes digital with "parent portals"
On Monday, I went to Roosevelt High School to see what could become a very innovative way for Dallas schools to engage the parents of their students. Starting on May 17, the district is rolling out a "parent portal" at Roosevelt, Annie Blanton Elementary School and E.D. Walker Middle School. Once they work out the kinks at these schools, all campuses in the Dallas district are supposed to have parent portals.
This concept is part of the next wave in education reform, and that is the use of data in helping parents and teachers move students along. The way this will work is that parents will get an email account that gives them access to the portal. From there, they can find all sorts of information about their child's academic work.
For example, they can see the next day's assignments. They can see the latest test scores. They can see whether their child actually attended school that day. They can see how many credits are still needed to graduate. They can even see whether a college actually received their child's application.
Dr. Leicha Shaver, Roosevelt's articulate, energetic principal, pointed out that this is a bit like social networking, so perhaps it won't be too foreign to many parents. The district is basically using technologies to loop in more mothers and fathers.
Some I've talked to about this project think parents will never use this portal. Or that they could get the same information if they checked their children's backpacks. In elementary school, for instance, information comes home every day about the latest work a child has done.
But Shaver offers a hard-to-refute point: More and more people are using social network sites to communicate
This concept is part of the next wave in education reform, and that is the use of data in helping parents and teachers move students along. The way this will work is that parents will get an email account that gives them access to the portal. From there, they can find all sorts of information about their child's academic work.
For example, they can see the next day's assignments. They can see the latest test scores. They can see whether their child actually attended school that day. They can see how many credits are still needed to graduate. They can even see whether a college actually received their child's application.
Dr. Leicha Shaver, Roosevelt's articulate, energetic principal, pointed out that this is a bit like social networking, so perhaps it won't be too foreign to many parents. The district is basically using technologies to loop in more mothers and fathers.
Some I've talked to about this project think parents will never use this portal. Or that they could get the same information if they checked their children's backpacks. In elementary school, for instance, information comes home every day about the latest work a child has done.
But Shaver offers a hard-to-refute point: More and more people are using social network sites to communicate
