Published by Mrs. Wilson
At the end of last week, All Saints Catholic Academy launched its very own online grade book called Parent Portal for grades 5-8. What is an online grade book? It’s pretty much as the name implies: a snapshot of your child’s performance in each class. Think of it as a rolling progress report. But is this what is best for our students? Is it building autonomy or encouraging micromanagement? I have mixed feelings.
Now, to be clear, the online grade book was my idea. For the past eight years, I have been responsible for supervising both the lower and upper school. The lower school is completely different in terms of supervision, as the lower school consists of self-contained classrooms. The upper school is a different animal entirely; teachers share students and getting a handle on how your child is doing academically requires a bit more work for parents. The careful orchestration of catching the science teacher here, the math teacher there. It wasn’t until I had the privilege of experiencing upper school as a parent that I started to notice some challenges in the area of communication. You see, my middle schooler suffers from a rare phenomena called I-don’t-tell-my-parents-
So the research began and a system was selected. Then the training ensued. Lots of it. And finally, the system launched. It’s pretty slick and I am proud of our work. The teachers have embraced it. (Once we made it past the “You mean we have to retroactively enter grades from the first marking period?” Mr. Close was ready to lock me in a closet and throw away the key.) It looks great and works just as it is supposed to. As an administrator, I am thrilled. As a parent, I am a little uncertain.
Are we teaching our students responsibility? Accountability? Ownership? Will they become obsessed with their grades, as a sole measure of performance? Will they watch the portal the way brokers watch the stock market, cringing at a slight variation?
Or, will this open up meaningful conversations, looping parents into an area of our students’ growth and development? Will this encourage our students to self-monitor, accessing extra help when needed? Could this system provide gentle reminders that an assignment is outstanding? (Outstanding in the sense that it’s late…however, I think the other meaning of outstanding fits here, too.)
I’m honestly not sure. However, I have decided as a parent to enjoy a healthy compromise. I’m not going to check the portal daily — I will check in weekly or bi-weekly. I don’t want this portal to take the place of my talks with my kids and I don’t want it to take the place of your talks with your kids, either. Let’s just use this as a tool to support our work as parents and educators. And we’ll go from there.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
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