Jaehee Park's weblog

The new tools help close the communication gaps among schools, children and the home, many parents say.

“It’s a nice tool for parents, because we live in a high-tech world,” said Lori Ried, whose children attend Elk Grove schools, which use a platform called “School Loop.”

School Loop, like its competitors, creates interactive, school-centric Web sites. Think of it as MySpace for the school’s community, offering e-mail, chat and electronic report cards, with homework assignments and test results thrown in. The program updates daily with new posts from teachers and administrators.

More than 200 schools in Utah, California, Massachusetts, Georgia and Kansas participate in School Loop, which launched in fall 2004.

Edline, PowerSchool, Comunicado and InClass are similar software programs.

Natomas Unified’s 12 schools received PowerSchool in 2002. Folsom-Cordova began using Edline in 2005. Elk Grove Unified signed up with School Loop in 2005, Galt Joint Union in 2006 and then Sacramento City in 2007.

At Pleasant Grove High School in Elk Grove last Friday, 10th-grader Dylan Moffat called School Loop “a double-edged sword,” as he took a break from his fourth-period class in study skills.

“You can check your grades,” said Dylan, “but the bad part is (your) parents can see your grades, too.”

Beyond grades, kids can no longer fib about having homework. Now, parents know better.

John Stayton is one such parent. As a registered School Loop user, he receives a daily e-mail with daughter Amanda’s current grades and assignments.

Amanda, 15, attends Franklin High, one of the 13 Elk Grove Unified schools using School Loop.

“I constantly have an understanding of her progress,” Stayton said.

Nancey Bartow has a 14-year-old, Sean, at Katherine L. Albiani Middle School, and a 16-year-old, Alison, at Pleasant Grove, the first Elk Grove “School Loop” school.

Bartow said the program “has been a real life-saver” for her son, who’s not a good note-taker. He can access the notes and digital presentations his teachers post.

With Alison on the cusp of college, Bartow said she uses School Loop “to know what’s coming up in (Alison’s) schedule in order to monitor her stress … and keep her focused.”

Pleasant Grove Vice Principal Ed van Brenk said the School Loop site has had 815,000 “hits,” or page views, since August.

“We know parents like it,” he said.

Pleasant Grove 10th-grader Anthony Huntoon is a fan, for the most part.

“If I don’t pay attention in class, I can check School Loop later,” said Anthony, who takes the study skills class with Dylan Moffat. “The bad part is some teachers don’t post homework or keep grades up to date.”

At about $30,000 per school per year, the popular program is not cheap.

At the Oct. 2 Elk Grove school board meeting, members debated whether School Loop should be mandated and funded for all schools.

Each of the 13 schools that uses the program pays for it out of the campus budget.

Board members Brian Myers and Jeannette Amavisca said they wanted to mandate the program and prioritize it in the coming school budget.

But others have questions. What if the fee goes up? And what about the “digital divide”? Not every household has a computer.

Board president Pollyanna Cooper-LeVangie said she preferred to offer the program to schools that ask for it rather than mandating it at sites that may not fully use it.

The district signed a three-year contract with School Loop, at an annual fee of $2.50 per student. However, the program’s CEO and founder, Mark Gross, said Monday that new districts are paying $4.25 per student per year.

Milton Chen, the executive director of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, which documents and disseminates information about technology and education, said it’s high time schools invest in technology.

But he also said this country’s “digital divide” should be of “great concern to school boards, policymakers and state legislators.”

The use of programs such as School Loop should be looked at “very seriously to make sure that while some schools move ahead, others are not being left behind.”

“If some students and families have access and others do not, there’s no level playing field.”