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Online monitoring of students' progress offered

Las Vegas Review - March 8, 2005

By Antonio Planas

As a single mother working in real estate, Grace Espiritu doesn't have much time to monitor her daughter's high school performance.

But because Silverado High School offers parents and students an online program to track grades and attendance, Espiritu is usually only a few mouse clicks away from catching up on her daughter's progress.

"I'll try to check on Fridays to see if she'll have a good weekend or not," Espiritu said of her daughter Shandi, a junior at Silverado. "I'll check in the middle of the week if she wants something like a dress. I'll say, `Let's check to see if you deserve it.' "

Two years ago, Silverado became the first school in the district to offer Edline. The program has now expanded to 21 high schools and middle schools in the district.

"You don't have to wait for report cards to come home to know how your child is doing in class," said Susan Thornton, a teacher and technology strategist at the school. "The best benefit is the improved communication between parents, students and the school. It allows students and parents to be actively involved in the students' progress and achievements."

Edline works by having students and parents enter a screen name and password. Parents and students have separate accounts and passwords but can verify the same information.

Silverado offers other options through the program such as dates of school events and links to the counseling office. Silverado is also the first school in the district to allow students to register for classes online, an option that 84 percent of its returning students exercised last week through Edline.

The cost of Edline varies from school to school, but at Silverado it costs about $1 per student, totaling about $2,600 per year, Thornton said. She added that all schools using Edline pay for the program using campus-generated revenue, not district funds.

Some students at the school said they liked the program, but added that some underachieving peers aren't so fond of it.

"A lot of kids who don't want their parents to know, don't tell their parents about it," said Bridgette Price, a junior at Silverado. "But there is no way around it because if you get a failure notice, then you're in double trouble."

Linda Hunt, whose daughter, Ferlayna Hunt, is a senior at Silverado, said the program is a useful tool not only for monitoring students, but teachers as well. The program allows her to catch teachers' mistakes such as unrecorded grades, she said.

Linda Hunt said most teachers provide a link on their class Web pages to their own e-mail address and oversights are often quickly fixed.

"They should have done this a long time ago," Linda Hunt said.

Teresa Yeoman, a math teacher and Edline facilitator at Silverado, said she has been pushing the district's top officials to implement Edline or a similar program districtwide to no avail.

She often tells parents to e-mail District Superintendent Carlos Garcia urging him to support the expansion of Edline, Yeoman said.

Garcia was not available for comment Monday.

Yeoman said it is the district's responsibility to financially support such a program, and the cost of Edline can be recovered by using the program. She cited Silverado's not paying for hard copies of its course catalog, instead offering it through Edline.

"It just comes down to money," Yeoman said. "For what it offers, it would easily pay for itself, over and over and over again."