Fairfax County recently implemented a new Student Information System (SIS), as well as ParentVue, a parent portal. Parents now have the ability to monitor their child’s attendance, grades, course history (from elementary school to their current grade), and upcoming homework, due dates, tests, and quizzes in each class.

Many students have seen more parental involvement; parents can see how students are doing in class, check their attendance, and alert students about missing assignments. Parents are automatically updated on issues that come up, when it’s close to the end of the quarter they don’t have to constantly e-mail teacher’s back and forth, they already are up to date about their child’s progress.

If parents choose to give their log-in information to their child, the student has 24/7 access to their grades. Some students choose not to log in at all, for others their parents haven’t made an account yet. But, the majority of students logged in about once per week and others checked their grade about every day. The majority of students found SIS to be helpful. Students can keep track of what assignments are missing and turn them in before it’s too late. Many students want a separate account for themselves instead of going through their parents.

As time goes on, schools, students, and parents are relying more on technology. Using technology has helped students and parents keep on top of their work and to be constantly updated about what’s happening to their grades. Overall, providing parents with new technology has helped to promote more involvement between the school and parents and also creating a sense of shared responsibility between parents and students.