For parents, kids' grades can be just a click away

"Nothing."

For decades, that's been the response countless parents got when they asked: "What did you do in school today?"

Bad news for some youngsters: That answer's not going to fly anymore.

That's because within the past five years or so, many schools have begun posting students' grades, daily assignments, attendance records and the like online, connecting parents with their kids' education like never before.

"It's a great tool," said Beth Breen, parent of a student at Kilo Middle School in the 22,000-student Federal Way School District. The district's 12 secondary schools post grades online, and parents can access them with identification codes. "Sometimes, kids at this age don't communicate much with parents about what's going on at school. This opens lines of communication."

While some teachers and school officials say online record keeping can be a struggle to keep up with, and worry that families without computers don't have the same opportunity to track their children's progress, the overall opinion is that anything that keeps adults involved in their kids' education is a good thing.

Posting grades online can be a relatively cheap endeavor — anywhere from no cost to a few thousand dollars a year — a plus for cash-strapped school districts. And with scores of area schools, such as in Federal Way, Kent, Everett, Edmonds, Bellevue, Arlington and Sultan, already posting grades online, some education officials predict that nearly all schools will within a few years.

Data just a click away

It's easy for teachers to update grades and assignments, and then get them online for students and parents to see.

On a recent morning at Kilo Middle School, where online grading has been in use for two years, Advanced Placement history teacher Scott McLaughlin sat at a terminal in the computer lab and launched a program called Grade Machine, software that teachers can access from any computer in their building.

Quickly clicking away, McLaughlin updated grades for his 90 students in a spreadsheet and entered descriptions of homework assignments he would give that day. As the new scores are entered, the software automatically updates the students' cumulative grades.

Less than 15 minutes later, McLaughlin exported the new data to the district's main computer system. At the end of the day, the district's technology department takes McLaughlin's and other teachers' new information and makes it accessible to students and parents from the district's main Web page.

Other software programs, such as Easy Grade Pro, used in Everett schools; Basmati in Edmonds, Kent and many other schools; or ParentOrganizer in some Lake Washington schools, work similarly.

Checking the grades and assignments online is also easy for parents and students.

Just before Thanksgiving break, Breen, the Kilo parent, arrived home from work to find eighth-grade daughter Keri already on the family computer. Like on most nights, mom and daughter went over what happened in classes.

Keri went to the district Web site, clicked on a link to Kilo grades and entered a required identification number and password; her grades appeared on the screen. Mixed in among some A's in science, health and choir, Breen noticed that her daughter was getting a D in English.

"Oh, my gosh, Keri, what's up?" she asked. Keri clicked on a link to her English class, where Breen saw Keri hadn't made up assignments from days she was absent and that she was behind in reading assignments.

"We'll be watching her more closely and making sure she's reading more," Breen said.

Keri rolled her eyes.

More parent involvement

"It's made a huge difference in the way I deal with my kids," said Breen, whose older daughter, now in high school, didn't have access to online grading just a few years ago. "I had no idea what she was doing in class, and she ended up in trouble (academically). With Keri, I can see what the problems are before it becomes too late."

In the past, it was typical for schools to mail home progress reports about once every six weeks. By the time a parent found out a child was falling behind, it was likely too late to take actions that could make a difference, said Kilo's principal, Deb Brewer.

Most schools with online grading don't require teachers to update grades daily, but some teachers like McLaughlin do anyway. Others update grades at least once every week or two. Also, most schools with online grading post teachers' e-mail addresses so parents can easily contact a teacher — a switch from the past when the only opportunity to talk would be during infrequent parent-teacher conferences.

At Alderwood Middle School in the Edmonds School District, teachers have used the grading software Basmati for more than a year. Since August, parents or students have checked grades and assignments online nearly 7,500 times, said Susie Baier, principal of the 700-student school.

Baier said parents often take less of an active role in their children's school lives once the children hit the secondary level. Either students are embarrassed at having their folks check up on them, or the number of teachers makes it difficult for parents to stay connected.

Baier, and others at Alderwood, say having grades and other information online allows parents to be participants in a low-profile role, if they choose.

Alderwood English teacher Babby Skowyra said that of her 52 students this quarter, 39 of their families have contacted her by e-mail via the school's online grading system. That is a large increase from the past, when parent phone calls were seldom.

Posting grades online also keeps teachers on top of student progress, Skowyra said, because students and parents expect regular updates and give teachers a hard time if grades aren't refreshed frequently. "It doesn't allow me to procrastinate," she said. "And I don't give up weekends anymore, grading papers I should have two weeks ago."

Concerns over access, security

Many families don't have a home computer or access to one at work, so a big drawback to online grading is that not all families can use it.

Duane Duxbury, an assessment specialist in the Everett School District who started online grading there, said "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," meaning parents who use online grading regularly can detect problems immediately and push students harder, while parents without Internet access don't have that opportunity.

However, because the grading programs are quick and easy, teachers encourage parents to call teachers to check grades for them, or use computers at their children's schools or public libraries.

With online grading, there's also the worry of someone — say a tech-savvy student — hacking into a district's computer system and changing grades.

In May 2002, 19 students at Burien's Highline High School were suspended for their roles in such a scheme.

Pete Dronzek, Federal Way's Webmaster, said security is tight. For starters, connections are encrypted, meaning nobody online other than the password holder can identify the user's password. Also, teachers still keep grades in gradebooks, so if someone did hack into a system, they'd only be changing a copy.

Cost can also be an issue.

Many districts use Basmati, created in 1998 by Arlington High School teacher Jim Bassett, because the software was released under an open-source license agreement. Any district can download it for free and make modifications, as long as it reveals the changes made. Then the only cost to a district is about $300 a year to have a local Educational Service District or someone else host the technology on their Web server, if they choose not to host it on the district's.

However, not every district has an employee who knows how to do this, and having a private company create and implement similar technology can cost anywhere from $3,000 to $75,000 a year.

Tracking soon to expand

Because of the large number of private companies offering online grading software, and because software like Basmati is widely downloaded, it's hard to estimate how many schools use such software. Across the country, the number could be in the tens of thousands or higher.

Hundreds more schools in the state will soon have access to online grading.

At the Everett offices of the Washington School Information Processing Cooperative, which handles and develops information-management systems for most of the state's 296 school districts, officials have joined with Wisconsin-based Skyward Inc. to create software that tracks nearly all aspects of a student's day.

The program, which will be available in January to the approximately 60 districts that now use Skyward software, monitors grades, assignments, attendance, disciplinary offenses — even what a student had for lunch. The cost will be $14.68 a year per student.

Some students are annoyed that mom and dad now have so much insight into how they spend their days, and some parents, too, joke that online grades wouldn't have been popular among students in their day. But most students agree it's helpful to track their progress and prove to their parents they really are getting work done.

"Some people aren't on the ball, so it gets them to say, 'I have to stop fooling around and get working,' " said Alderwood eighth-grader Andrew Steinmetz.

Added Kilo eighth-grader Rebekah Brougher: "If parents want to look at your grades, they can. This kind of motivates you to get your grades up, because it's nice for them to see A's."

J.J. Jensen: 425-745-7809 or jjensen@seattletimes.com