Will Your Child's Report Card Be a Surprise?

End-of-year report cards are almost here…with their arrival comes the potential for shocking and unpleasant revelations.

Report cards are generally upheld as the ultimate indicator of student progress—after all, they are the final word on a child’s academic progress in the school year—but the wait and the wondering about what the report card will reveal can be very stressful to both kids and parents alike.

In an attempt to remove the wondering and the unpleasant surprises from the reporting process, school boards across the US have implemented online programs such as EdLine, to help parents monitor their children’s daily academic standing.

According to an article in the New York Times called I Know What You Did Last Math Class these programs open the lines of communication and to keep parents informed at every possible opportunity throughout the school year, not just when report cards arrive.

The reporting technology fuels the debate about a parent’s level of involvement and what is or isn’t private in a child’s education. As you might expect, responses to programs that allow parents to monitor their child’s progress online vary from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Keeping informed of your child’s academic progress however is not dependent solely on new online technologies—there are many other warning signs throughout the year which signal that a student may be heading into academic hot water.

There are the newer technology or web-based indicators; school blogs, teacher sites, and class webpages where parents can log on and read what particular assignment a class is working on now. There are behavioral indications—bad attitudes about school, lack of motivation, lying, skipping classes; and there are the more obvious warnings—a poor mark on a test, homework not completed, or even the dreaded a call from the teacher.

Regardless of any warning signs that may have been missed during the school year, the end-of-year report card is the final update. And while it may be the end of the road for progress in the school year, it doesn’t mean that all hope for the academic future is lost.

After all, there is still the summer to get the kids back on track, even if there is no online monitoring program.

More on that next time.

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