Technology Providing Parents In Santa Maria A Valuable Resource
Parents who have kids enrolled in the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District have an online tool that will allow them to stay up-to-date with academic and attendance information. The Aeries Student Information System/Parent Portal has been used in the district for several years. However, this year the district has fully rolled out the system utilizing all of its teachers at all four of its schools.
“Aeries is our student data management system,” said John Davis, Assistant Superintendent Curriculum and Instruction. “It’s what we do district-wide to generate data regarding everything from student attendance to student achievement, transcript information; our courses are plugged into Aeries.”
The system is available to be accessed any time online in both English and Spanish. For parents like Edwin Weaver, who has a senior at Righetti High School, the information is invaluable.
“We don’t have to wait until the report card to find out they’re doing,” said Weaver. “We know the second week of school actually what assignments are missing and what are in, what days of school they’re in, including if they missed or cut school.”
In addition to having academic information available on its website, Aeries also sends out customized weekly progress reports. “We can set it up to push out data to parents at regular intervals, which really helps our teachers to communicate with parents on student progress and it really, really helps the parents,” said Davis.
Weaver, who has three kids enrolled at schools that use the Aeries system, believes it’s a valuable tool for parents who have kids above elementary school. Rather than have just one teacher to communicate with, students in middle school or high school have several.
“It’s hard to keep up with everything,” said Weaver. “Our kids have 7 different teachers and all of a sudden we weren’t able to see exactly which teacher was doing what.” But now with Aeries at his fingertips, Weaver has a much easier way to keep track of his kids. “This is a great way, because now all of a sudden we have assignments that are missing or we have the grades, so we can contact the teacher and start the dialog earlier and not have to wait.”
Davis says parents should take advantage of the free system to stay in-touch with the students academic progress. “The research shows that students that are successful have parents at home that care, and have teachers that care and work in an organization that facilitates that communication,” said Davis.
The detailed information that Aeries provides is only available for parents, students and legal guardians. Those interested in signing up only need an email address and access to a computer or smart phone.
