A Catholic school education goes beyond the core curriculum. Student values are reinforced in every classroom, promoting healthy self-esteem, confidence, respect, compassion, and consideration for others. Equally important to a child’s learning and educational experience is the impact their parents have in monitoring their progress. Catholic schools that embrace technology and data to improve school to home communication provide parents with the tools necessary to actively engage in their children’s education.
A web portal is the perfect platform to strengthen real and meaningful relationships with teachers, parents, students, and staff. It can provide users with access to many resources and services, such as instructional materials, lesson plans, student data, news about current events, instant messaging and email, and more. Today’s parents, especially tech-savvy Millennials who now have kids of their own, are demanding this kind of added value from their educational experience and investment.
A typical contemporary parent – and most students – are highly involved in their education and not only expect but demand ongoing access to their academic data. Two to four report cards a year no longer constitutes sufficient communication between the school, parent and student. Today’s Student Information Systems (SIS) need to be equipped with the resources the school community demands to get the most out of their solutions. The web portal should offer an intuitive, easy-to-use platform that can smartly manage student data and allow secure access to the information you need anytime, from any device.
Provide parents the tools to actively engage in their children’s education
Does your school’s SIS allow for your parents, teachers, students and staff to communicate easily? As the head of technology or head of school, when choosing an SIS system, you want to be sure it has the communication channels community stakeholders need. When researching your next SIS solution be sure it can do the following:
- Instantly share information online.Integration with all products (gradebook, billing, admissions, mobile apps, etc.) allows parents, teachers and staff to view important data in real-time, including grades, attendance, schedules, assignments, and more.
- Provide a single point of access for information. Interactive web portals enable school administrators and teachers to instantly share data and engage with parents and students in a secure environment.
- Email Integration and messaging. Parents, students, teachers, and staff can easily communicate with one another with integrated email capability.
- Mobile Access. Mobile Apps for iOS and Android make it easy for the entire school community to stay connected. Meet the mobile demands of staff, parents and students by giving them access to grades, attendance, class schedules, discipline, announcements, lesson planning, school directories, etc.
- School Notifications. With a school notification system, administrators can quickly notify thousands of contacts within the school community via email, text and voice message, about school cancellations and delays, emergency alerts, news updates, and event notifications.
- Provide security. Visitors can log in to their accounts from any device securely. An encrypted connection ensures your student and family information stays secure.
- Technical assistance. Technical assistance is provided to users through various options, including email, telephone, online assistance, community forums, and more.
Parents who choose Catholic schools for their child’s education do so because of the high academic standards, values-based education and safe and loving school environment that Catholic Schools have to offer.
Including a portal system that will be used by students, teachers and parents requires careful planning based on the needs of the entire school. Your current student information system should allow you to reach all the important members of your school community quickly and easily. If your SIS is lacking this technology, it may be time to step into the future and invest in a mobile-ready system that will open wide the door to renewed family engagement in Catholic education.
