Last fall, the Rev. Larry and Deb Mort started using the Internet to check their son's schoolwork at West Allegheny High School, where Andrew Mort, 15, is a freshman.
With the spring came the chance to check on the work of younger son Joseph, 14, when the district expanded the online grade book program into the middle school.
"It's great," said Deb Mort, an electrical engineer. "I like the fact that we get to see how they are doing. It's an opportunity to see test scores I wouldn't get to see otherwise."
West Allegheny's recent expansion of parental access is another local example of the growth of online grade book systems. They allow parents and/or students with user names and passwords to log in and check students' progress.
The systems -- which include brand names like Dashboard, Edline and PowerSchool -- tout secure set-ups that allow only authorized views of information. Teachers post not only grades, but homework, test and quiz scores, as well as scores for projects and papers and notices of upcoming assignments. Some systems allow parents to receive an e-mail report if a teacher enters new scores or a student drops below a certain grade level.
"You just have to be a little computer savvy to use it," said Rick Smith, West Allegheny Middle School principal.
Parents and students can log onto such systems as often as they wish, and many do.
"We see 38,000 log-ins a month," said Cissy Bowman, spokeswoman for the Mt. Lebanon School District. Mt. Lebanon's parents and 5,000 students in all grade levels have used the Dashboard system since 2004.
Martha Smith, a spokeswoman for Quaker Valley School District, said the district, with about 1,930 students, averages 78 parents and 402 students a day logging on to see student progress.
West Allegheny Business Manager Jerry Wessel said the two-year contract the district has with Edline cost $19,719.
The costs of such systems vary depending on the size of the district and the services requested. Penn Hills, with about 5,400 students, initially paid $37,504 for its Edline system. Secondary technology coordinator Sally Myers said students do not have access to the system, but parents of students in grades six to 12 do.
Joseph Marrone, Quaker Valley's senior director of administrative services, said his district's PowerSchool system cost $57,590 for four years starting in 2001-02. The system handles required reports for the state, such as attendance, and allows high school students to do their course selection and scheduling online prior to each school year, like college students.
Sanjeev Ahuja of Chicago-based Edline says his company's online grade book system serves 15,000 schools.The company began implementing an online grade book in 1999. Such systems can keep "parents involved in their student's education," Ahuja said.
Rancho Cordova, Calif.-based Pearson School Systems, which bought PowerSchool from Apple in 2006, provides student information and performance systems for 130,000 schools.
While online systems can keep parents informed much more frequently than the traditional hard-copy report cards issued quarterly, "they're not perfect," said Sally Myers, secondary technology coordinator for Penn Hills School District. Among the drawbacks mentioned by administrators:
• Some systems automatically update information for the entire class when a teacher begins to enter new grades. If a teacher is called away in the middle of entering grades for that work, a student or parent logging in might see skewed information. Quaker Valley's Marrone has recommended that parents and students check their accounts on Friday, by which time teachers should have scores updated.
• Power failures. "When we lose power, we lose the ability to use the program," West Allegheny's Smith said.
• Family access to the Internet is not universal. "Not all parents have the technology at home or can't get on it at work," Smith said. But Edline's Ahuja said about 87 percent of U.S. households have Internet access and someday, paper report cards won't be necessary.
• Technical support. West Jefferson Hills was happy with its LetterGrade system but is replacing it because the company that was providing technical support plans to end that function. West Jefferson Hills, with about 2,800 students, plans to use PowerSchool, said technology director Suhail Baloch.
Terry Kinavey, who will become West Jefferson Hills' superintendent in June, said the district paid $86,000 for the system. Services to the district will include PowerSchool's online grade book, student scheduling, state reports for statistics such as attendance and graduation rates and special education reports. Kinavey said the district will pay about $10,000 annually after the first year for maintenance.
While companies such as Pearson say online grade books are the wave of the future, not all school districts offer access to parents. With about 8,000 students, North Allegheny School District has not given access to parents or students. Spokeswoman Joy Ed said the district "wants to get it right before giving parents access."
Smith said the online systems are a plus for administrators, too. If a child seems to be having a problem, "We don't have to call the teacher to see what's happening."
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