Parents will have a new a way to keep up with their child’s grades and attendance information online for the 2009-2010 school year. Mustang Schools is launching ParentPortal on Sept. 14 in place of ParentConnect, which is no longer supported by the software vendor.
The new program, ParentPortal, allows parents to see the same information they’re used to: grades, attendance information, assignments and more in an online, secure environment. Geromy Schrick, director of technology, said the new program will offer the same convenience and versatility, but procedures for gaining access to the site are different.
“For ParentPortal, all parents are automatically enrolled in the program,” he said. “There is no need to go online to sign up. Parents can go to their youngest child’s school during school hours after Sept. 14 to pick up the usernames and passcodes for each account.”
Under the previous system, parents with more than one child in school were able to access all of their children’s information with one login and password. With ParentPortal, a separate login and password must be used to access each student’s account, even if students are in the same family. Login and password information cannot be changed. Parents, even those who are divorced, will have to share account information and login for each child. Parents will need to bring a government issued photo ID when picking up their child’s account information so guardianship can be verified.
“With ParentPortal, parents will be able to see the information as it is updated in real time. With the previous program, parents had to wait for the once-a-day data upload to see new information,” Schrick said. “Parents will also be able to set their own email notifications with ParentPortal and get a summary of current grades and attendance as well as detailed reports or assignment scores for each class.”
Detailed instructions for using the system will be made available when the system is open to parents. There is also a help menu on every screen.
“In the future, we hope to allow for students and parents to do electronic class registration for the 2010-2011 school year,” he said. “They would be able to request the courses their student has an option to choose from.”
