Pillow Academy parents have been turning to the Internet this school year to check on how their children are doing in school.
"It's a wonderful, wonderful thing," said Vicki Fennell, a busy mom with four daughters at Pillow.
Two of Fennell's children are in the elementary school and not part of the new system. But the other two, a senior and an eighth-grader, now have mom looking up not only their grades but their assignments. "I love to check on a daily basis."
She and others - such as parents Perry Whites, Caroline Colquett and Billy Brunson - report they use the system to nip problems in the bud and, along with children, make better decisions about use of time.
Jane Hart Hargett, who works at Pillow, operates the system. It became available in October.
She and Russell Robertson, headmaster, decided on offering students and their parents access to K12Planet.com because they had been looking for a way "to get information to the parents more quickly."
Pillow already was using K12Planet for its school administration software. "So, it was a logical choice," she said.
With the system, each student has a password, and parents have another password.
The password allows access only to designated sets of records. Students cannot look at each others¹ records. The same with parents. They cannot view the records of children who are not their own.
What they can examine is all grades and assignments as soon as teachers post them.
"Each teacher is on her own schedule," Hargett said. "At night, what we do is upload onto the system."
"It also gives parents e-mail access to teachers, and it is very secure."
The grades, she noted, are only copies of what the teachers have in their grade books. Disciplinary records, with descriptions of offenses and the school¹s responses, also are posted.
So are absences and, at a certain point, tardies.
Robertson said he worries a bit about possible downsides. Part of growing up and getting educated is learning how to manage time and effort, he said. He wouldn't want the system to interfere.
Robertson also said students should have the chance to fix problems, if they can. "We hope parents still let their children scrape their knees, so to speak, and still get up themselves."
Brunson, whose son is in a junior, said Robertson has a point, but there's also a lot to be gained from knowing when to intervene. "It can prevent a lot worse disasters," Brunson explained.
Brunson and Whites, who has a ninth-grade daughter at Pillow, said they mainly check on grades.
"We don¹t use it much for assignments," Whites said. "She knows what she has to do."
However, he and his wife, Page, now have a better idea abut when their daughter ought to be studying especially hard."When it comes close to time for nine weeks tests and exams, we stay on her."
Monday at Pillow, three sixth-graders - William Fisher, Dasha Tsema and Parker Harris - said they are OK with K12Planet, especially since they use it, too.
"It's easy to do," William said.
Looking up their assignments and grades tends to verify what they already know. Or, they can find out if a grade, good or bad, was more significant than they thought.
Dasha wants to be sure she won't be caught unprepared when, for example, there is a pop test.
The students have been instructed not share passwords and not to peer each other's records when they are displayed on computer screens.
Colquett is totally sold on the new system. She usually doesn't help with homework, but she insists that her children get it done.
And the system will tell her when it hasn't been done. "If there is a zero there, they haven't turned it in."
"It helps with children who like to procrastinate. They are not caught at the last minute," Colquett said.
"It is a good tool for parents who like to what is coming up during the week what tests they are having when," she said.
Sometimes a child doesn¹t evaluate his or her workload appropriately, Colquett said. Her sixth-grader, for example, may not understand how long a special project will take.
Easy access to assignments "helps me to know when she needs to skip something. She may not realize she need to come home and when she gets home that evening, all of the studying she needs to do."
For a link to K12Planet, access www.pillowacademy.com
