Dear Editor:
Re: Parents Blocked From Accessing Online Report Cards, March 17 news story.
Your recent article regarding the system failure where parents weren’t able to access the recent report cards forgot to mention something – children weren’t able to access their report cards either. But the reason wasn’t a technology failure. It was because children have been denied access to their report cards. The school board has deemed it better to just forget the child and send the report electronically to the parent. Does it really make sense to bypass the “middleman” in this case?
In our family’s opinion, this not only takes away control from our children but demonstrates that we don’t trust them. They have to wait for parents to get around to signing in to another web page with yet another password in order to access their grades.
The opportunity to see their excited parents’ expressions when first presenting a good report is gone. There is one less opportunity to interact face to face with parents for those reports indicating improvements are necessary.
When talking to friends, some will know their grades well before others because not all parents have time available to access a report card at work and text the grades to their child.
According to your article, the North Vancouver School District states “The feedback from the parents was fabulous” on online reporting. I don’t recall ever seeing a survey asking for parents’ opinion. What about the kids opinion? Oh right – I guess they don’t matter.
Brent Willox
North Vancouver
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