Idaho schools use Net to reach parents

Nampa district puts attendance, grades online

NAMPA — The Nampa School District is enlisting new allies to make
sure that students are attending school and keeping up their grades:
parents.

Idaho Statesman

And district educators are aggressively using online resources to
improve communications with parents.

This month, the district began using a new computer program called ParentLink, which
informs parents about their students´ attendance.

In the next few months, the program will allow the district to post individual students´ test
scores and grades that parents can check out by phone or online.

The system is being put in place at Nampa and Skyview high schools and at West and South
middle schools.

“It´s important for us to involve parents because they´re instrumental in helping us help
students reach their goals,” said Jason Hillman, building administrator at both Skyview High
and South Middle Schools.

“If parents have easy access to information, I think there will be a greater interest among them
to track how well their children are doing in school,” said Stan Bastian, building administrator
at Nampa High School.

Bill Beverage, the district´s information technology services administrator, said the program
gives parents more direct access to information about how their children are doing in school.

“Usually, parents don´t know what´s going on, and students tend to control the communication
between them and school,” he said. “We want to make it very convenient for parents to be
involved.”

ParentLink is programmed to call parents at home on all unexcused and unverified absences.
It also will call on three or more tardies in the first period. District officials said access on
demand and interactive capabilities make the system preferable to the automatic phone dialer
that previously was used by schools to alert parents about students´ attendance.

In a few weeks, the district plans to move forward with the program´s second phase. Teachers
will be able to post students´ grades and other information that parents can access on-line or
through a touch-tone phone. The parents will be issued passwords to access their children´s
information.

“Schools that have used the system are definitely saying that it has improved parents´
involvement,” said Rod Davis, regional sales director of Provo, Utah-based Parlant
Technology, which developed ParentLink. The district bought the software for about $30,000.
The money came from the state and was allotted to improve technology.

Teachers would play a large part in making the program work, since it would be up to them to
make sure that information about the students is kept current.

“It will require a lot from teachers, but I think it will help parents a lot more,” said Dion Dice, a
math teacher at Skyview High.

Right now, he said, parents typically wait for report cards to be sent home before they learn
about their children´s academic performance. By then, often it´s too late for parents to do
anything, he said.

“Unless parents know about their child´s attendance and grades, they can´t support us as
teachers as well at home,” said Linda Avery, reading and English teacher at Skyview High
School.

Some parents are already expressing high hopes for the system. “Anything that can help
students is worth pursuing,” said Jeff Cotterell, a parent with children attending Nampa High
School and West Middle School.

What other school districts are doing

Boise and Meridian school districts still use the Phone Master — essentially an automatic
dialer — to alert parents about students´ attendance.

In the next few months, both districts plan to adopt ParentLink to offer more interactive forms
of communicating with parents.

To offer story ideas or comments, contact Herbert Atienza
[email protected] or 377-6413

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