During the school year, every nine weeks parents eagerly await the production of report cards, giving them an objective measure of their child’s effort.

Through the readings of the report cards, children’s lives change. Through report cards, parents are given a choice: reward their bundle of joy with some little piece of happiness or ground them for their mediocre grades.

The Escambia County School Board has decided to up the ante for parents, allowing EHS to be part of a pilot program in which parents, students, and guardians can see their grades updated daily. The viewable grades will be hosted by Tyler Education Management Solutions (TEMS).

According to Principal Leorah Mims, this system will be beneficial to everyone.

“Instant accessibility is a good thing for parents,” she said.

After hearing the news, students evinced different reactions. Some boys said farewell to their girlfriends, children mourned the loss of their after-dinner dessert, but some rejoiced at the chance to see their grades freshly updated.

As of now, five math teachers are piloting and searching the system for bugs, to eschew the possibility of an error down the line. For a few months the program will only be announced in five teacher’s classes and the product’s testing will begin.

If one of the TEMS users finds an error, in order to fix it for further use, he must email the TEMS company with the information he has found.
Users are hoping, eventually, that teachers will be able to provide an electronic copy of the day’s assignment on their online progress reports. This will help sick days become less daunting for students.

Teachers are giving mixed reviews of the TEMS program. They believe the program has good intentions, but the task of grading and entering them into the web daily provides more pressure.
With the new system being online a new problem arises. Sometimes, due to odd weather or unknown reasons, the network shuts down, taking internet access with it.
Linda Danks, TEMS coordinator, believes that when this system goes live, teachers should keep two grade books: the TEMS and a computer-based version.
The launch of the Parent Portal is uncertain, but if things go as planned, and not too many errors are found, it is said to be released by the 2011-2012 school year.
“The school district I used to work in had [a similar program]. It is a very easy way for parents to be able to keep up with the progress of their student’s progress in school,” said Mrs. Mims. “It was presented to the technology department here as a possibility and they’ve been working on a way to get that done.”
Mims believes that more accessible data will inevitably lead to a better-informed network.
“It eliminates the possibility for the parent not to be unable to find out if their child is succeeding or not succeeding,” she said.
Any time there is a new program there is stress involved with it because one does not know whether it will immediately work the way it should. Here’s hoping that the new TEMS system will be everything that the district needs it to be.