Education Focus

Education Focus

Written by Rachel Youens Saturday, 07 October 2006

Online grade reporting bridges information gap

Now LISD parents won’t be holding their breath on report card day wondering what grades to expect. The district’s new GradeSpeed ParentConnection is bridging the gap between home and school by allowing parents to track their child’s progress online.

“The most frequent request we get from parents for an added service is online access to grades,” said Bill Britcher, LISD’s communication director. “We already send home report cards and progress reports, but this gives them something to fill in the time between those.”

This free service publishes the grades and attendance records of students in second through twelfth grade and assigns parents a personalized login name and password to check the weekly updated information. Teachers in the Leander district have already been keeping their grades online for two years, so the GradeSpeed ParentConnection program doesn’t require any extra work.

“Really, we’re just adding a window for parents to something teachers are already doing,” Britcher said. “It’s a program with a lot of impact without having to ask more of busy teachers.”

Online Grade reporting is effective immediately for all secondary students, and will begin in January for elementary. Attendance reports are effective for both grade levels. Letters went out Sept. 7, to all parents in the district informing them of the program and how to log in, and the Web site may also be found from the LISD home page, www.leanderisd.org

LISD has had success with past online efforts, such as their volunteer sign up application. In three months more than 4,700 parents applied. In August, the district also began publishing an e-newsletter, Leander ISD Insider, to keep parents and members of the community up to date.

Blue Belles tape segments for Friday Night Lights series

Leander High School dancers, the Blue Belles, were picked by the casting director to appear in the football themed Friday Night Lights television series. Fifteen current, former and future members of the dance team taped two scenes with one of the show’s stars, Aimee Teegarden, back row, third from left.

Four students named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists

Karen Gerken, Nikki Pinney and Nina Wang of Cedar Park High, and Forrest Blackwelder of Leander High were chosen as merit scholarship candidates based on their preliminary SAT test scores. Fourteen other students in the district were commended, meaning they scored in the top five percent of the 1.4 million students who entered the contest.

Controversial Bible class earns praise from independent survey

Cedar Park High School’s elective course, Old Testament Influence on American Civilization, was recognized by The Texas Freedom Network Education Fund as one of the state’s top Bible courses. The Freedom Network, a watchdog group for church-state conflicts, praised the course for explaining different views of the Bible and not having religious bias.