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Hernando Today

Parent Portal Sites Cause Confusion

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By LINNEA BROWN

Hernando Today

Published: August 29, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - Parents of public school students will soon be able to see exactly what their kids are doing at school all day - just not yet.

While the Hernando County School District has implemented a "parent portal," or communication tool that will allow all local parents to use a special code to log in to their child's school Web site and view their child's grades and homework assignments, it won't be completely up and running for another two months.

Problem is, the district launched its new Web site last week - and instead of the old site's format of linking to each school's site, the "schools" tab now links to each school's "Edline" page, where parents will eventually be able to type in a code to access their children's information.

In the meantime, the mix-up is causing some confusion among parents. When they try to go to their child's school's Web site, they instead find a mostly-barren Edline page, which has yet to go into full use.

"Just because someone can see the Edline page doesn't mean the school's parent portal is ready," said Melissa Harts, the district's director of technology and information services.

The move to link to each Edline site was an effort to make the district's site more uniform, as directed by Superintendent Wayne Alexander, she added.

While the district piloted the program last year at J.D. Floyd K-8, where it is currently in full use, several other schools have been quick to assign parents access numbers - but have not necessarily been clear that the Edline pages are a work-in-progress.

"If schools are sending out activation codes to parents and reaching out, then I applaud them, but the request is for parents to be patient," Harts said. "It's only the second week of school. If we have complaints at the end of the second quarter, then we have a problem."

However, each school's parent portal site should at least link to students' schedules and teacher pages soon, though many are not yet complete, she said.

"If a school has sent home activation codes and there's still a technical problem, then inform the school and we'll get it corrected - but bravo to the schools that are getting the word out there," Harts said.

Other districts have used similar programs for years. Hernando purchased its program from the company Edline last year, and officials hope to have it up and running districtwide by the end of the first nine weeks. It will be accessed though the district's new Web site, www.hernandoschools.org.

Reporter Linnea Brown can be reached at 352-544-5289 or lbrown@hernandotoday.com.

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