Today I attended the Parent Engagement Summit at Horace Mann Middle School (props to the Office of School-Family Partnerships and other departments for doing a great job organizing this event and turning out a very diverse group of parents!); one of the major topics at the breakout session I attended was communication — and specifically, SchoolLoop.
If you don’t know what SchoolLoop is, don’t feel bad — most parents and many staff still don’t — but this is a newly-implemented tool that brings school-home communication to the next level. It allows parents to log on and see their child’s assignments, latest grades, upcoming tests, field trips and other events. Parents without an Internet connection can receive announcements by phone, translated into any of 22 languages.
Starting in October, each school will have a designated SchoolLoop liaison to train staff and help implement the tool at each site; if you have yet to hear anything about SchoolLoop at your school, you should speak to your principal and ask him or her to schedule a training for parents and for staff.
Rachel Norton 
I think the issue with teachers is that we haven’t given them the technological resources many need to be connected from the classroom. The early adopters are boosting wireless signals from across the street (frowned upon!) and firing up their personal laptops to connect with SchoolLoop; but others are afraid of the potential time commitment and wary of new technology in any event.
So far the district’s philosophy has been to coax rather than demand, and for now I agree with that approach — at least until we have the resources to give every teacher a district laptop and appropriate user support.
Hi, Rachel. I’m interested to see how your SchoolLoop implementation goes. Here in Ridgewood, we will be installing SkyWard, a similar student data system with (supposedly) much opportunity for parent access. Some parents can’t wait to get their hands on it — with the ability to see assignments, check grades, see if homework is up to date, etc. Others have expressed concern (informally) about parents being too involved, too hands-on, too “helicopter”-ish. There was a story in the NY Times last year (or earlier) about whether this kind of access is a good thing (it mostly dealt with HS students)…I’ll find and send the link.
Also, curious to see teacher response to SchoolLoop. Undoubtedly all this updating and communicating will mean more “work” for teachers. I worry about ours resisting…we have a Blackboard system at our HS and teacher use is sporadic.
Hope all is well in SF!