This story is from Canada, but the same program is being offered at many school in the US too.
Basically, parents can click on a school’s link, put in their password, and check on all sorts of things about their children. You can make sure Junior was at school like he said, check his latest math grade, see if he has any homework tonight, etc.
Some parents see it as a great thing. They can be very involved in their child’s education.
Understandably, many kids see it as an invasion of their privacy. It’s like having someone staring over your shoulder the whole time.
Children see it as an invasion of privacy? They don’t HAVE any right to privacy. Indeed a parent who doesn’t look over their children’s shoulder on a regular basis are derelict in their duties as a parent.
In practice a parent should repspect their children’s right to privacy as the child shows they have earned that right. If you have a good kid with no indication of drug abuse and who doesn’t get into trouble with the law some room for privacy can be granted. If a kid is regularly truant and busted for drugs their room should get a nightly shakedown by the parent.
I do not see how the child can claim that a parent looking at their grades even approaches privacy issues? The parent pays for their education, clothes, food, shelter and is legally responsible for the child as well as the child’s actions (to some extent). I seriously doubt the child has any legal expectation of privacy from their parents (although young women can get abortions without the parents being notified which I know is a regular battleground in the abortion debate and I suppose that does suggest some legal basis for a minor’s right to privacy).
Guess I should wait some more and see what others have to say.
Technically, while children might not have a right to privacy (being minors and all that), I believe that a good parent has the moral obligation to give their children some degree of privacy. It’s a sign that you trust your child, that you don’t need to be a domineering disciplinarian or wanna-be Big Brother.
Of course, the question then becomes how much privacy to give the child, and the answer is always the same – “it depends on the kid.”
Sigh. We give teenagers the respect we would give six-year-olds, then nod sagely when they act six years old. Whatever happened to letting people act like adults, and bringing in the administrative systems after they screw up?
I don’t see how it is an invasion of privacy. A parent right now can call the school and speak with teachers or administrators to find out how their children are doing. What’s so insidious about being able to look that information up online? I just don’t see how this could be anything but positive for parents who want to be involved in their child’s education. Is there really anybody against this?
As for whether or not children have a right to privacy I would have to say yes. Of course that right to privacy only applies to government actions and not to parents. A parent should be able to conduct searches and otherwise pry into the lives of their children. Although I think we can all agree some parents can be overzealous.
We are going to be using this system in the school I work at starting next year. I have gone through the early training for use of the system already.
I have to say that it basically is a way to establish quicker means of communication with parents. Instead of waiting until half of the grading period is over to know the student’s progress, a parent could keep up with their grades on a daily or weekly basis. So, if a student doesn’t hand in their homework, mom and pop would know that night if they decided to check it out. There is also the ability for teachers to add comments and so on.
Also, if your child comes home and forgets the assignment, then you simply go to the site and find out what was assigned for that night. Attendance for each period is listed, so you know if they go to all classes, not just first period! Even the lunch menu is on the site.
I think it will be benificial for students, especially those who need someone to stay on top of them so they will get their work done. Parents always know their child’s grades eventually, so what does it matter if they can access them more quickly?
Got just such a system running in our school district, although it is strictly grades/assignments, not attendance. I think it’s great, although it relies on the teachers inputting the data, and some are better than others. Considering that schools regularly send home reportc cards, notes, the occasional graded paper, test, or assignment sheet requiring signatures, and regularly schedule parent/teacher conferences, I can’t really see how this is any different. It’s just one more method of reporting student progress.
While I do believe that children need a certain amount of privacy, that amount and what areas/subjects it covers is ultimately for the parents to decide. Every kid is different, and some parents may not ever need to look at Johnny Genius’ grade reports, but others may want to know when a kid starts having trouble rather than waiting until the next quarterly report card. In any case, it’s the school system’s job to provide an education for my kids, and my job to ensure that my kids are doing their part as well. The more information I have about how well or poorly my daughter is doing, the better I can head off problems or reward good work.
Fair enough. Shall we do a brief survey of high school kids and adults and see which group contains more murderers per thousand, and restrict privacy accordingly?
And I would point out that treating every kid like a potential crazed murderer really chafes against the normal kids, as well as doing bugger-all to adress why some kids end up as crazed murderers.
This system as described isn’t objectionable. As pointed out, all the information is readily available to parents. But I’m expecting someone to attempt to write a profiler for problem students and be even more of a hassle.
[half-sarcasm]
Whatever happened to students who wanted to learn learning and those who didn’t starving in the streets as nature intended?
[/half-sarcasm]
My guess is that Whack-a-Mole’s point is that being more informed and involved is a better approach than “letting people act like adults, and bringing in the administrative systems after they screw up?”
Of course children have a right to privacy. They’re people too.
But this doesn’t come close to infringing on it; it isn’t even anything new[sup]*[/sup]. Parents have been able to check on their kids’ school performance for years! The only difference is now they can do it with a computer at any time, instead of with a phone during school hours. The system just makes it easier for lazy people to get involved.
at least, nothing mentioned in the OP is new. I can’t connect to the link.
Thank you. Yes. The important detail was after they screw-up. I submit that at that point it is too late. Columbine may be a rare occurrence and an extreme occurrence but I used it to illustrate a point. Even if it is ‘just’ your kid getting messed up with drugs saying you should allow them their privacy which allows them to continue their self-destructive behavior is an abdication of the parents’ responsibility to their children.
I’ve been saying that for years, but I guess that’s unsurprising given my age. For reasons I don’t understand, the American generation that staged a countercultural revolution has turned into a bunch of incredibly mistrustful, overactive parents. Perhaps they’re afraid their kids will be as different as they were from their parents?
(I’m aware I’m making big generalizations here, but I know a good number of parents for whom this is true, and it’s in equal measure fascinating and annoying.)
Columbine was neither the first nor last tragic school shooting, but I think the trends that are at work here are far more than 4 years old. We’re seeing more metal detectors at schools now (for example), but I see Columbine as something that reinforced pre-existing feelings.
Maybe it’s because we’re in GD, but are we going to pretend there’s no middle ground? The Harris and Klebold families were unaware their kids were getting guns and making bombs in the garage. Nobody’s going to say that’s good parenting. But at a certain point - regardless of the actions of very-rare-but-highly-publicized maniacs - parents DO have to quit spying on their kids, give them some respect and let them screw up occasionally. It’s part of life, and it’s how you learn.
I’m not saying this particular case crosses that line (although I think it may). My point is a more general one: looking after oneself is supposed to be part of being an adult. How are kids supposed to learn to do that if someone is always watching over their shoulders? I’m seeing more and more of that these days.
On another note, I’d argue that if you’re spying on your kids through a website, you’re probably not doing much of a job as a parent, and not just because of the mistrust it shows: if you can’t TALK to your own kids and are resorting to electrionic surveillance, something is clearly fucked up.
Maybe. Or you might have a child like mine who routinely claims to be done with his homework and then brings a note home saying that he was missing an assignment. I might even get the note without looking through his schoolbag myself. Did he lie about the homework or did he forget to take down the assignment? I don’t know, but if he tells me he forgot to write it down, I generally believe him. Is he trying to hide the notes from me? I don’t think so , since he also doesn’t give me letters from school that have no potential to get him into trouble and doesn’t hand in items sent to school with him. When it comes time to choosing a high school next year. I will prefer a high school that calls parents when children are absent if the parent hasn’t already notified the school of the absence. Do I mistrust him? Yep, because he’s shown that he’s not a reliable means of communication between me and the school. Does it mean I can’t talk to him? Maybe, if being able to talk to him means being able to rely on his answers. Am I doing “not such a good job as a parent”? Maybe. I could send him to a school where no effort was made to communicate with me aside from sending letters home with him, believe him when he tells me he’s done with all of his assignments, and then be shocked in June (or maybe September, if he never gives me the report card) when I find out he’s been left back. I suppose that could make me a better parent in someone’s view.
It seems this system will only include information that the parent’s can or should already get in other ways- I can call the school and find out if my child was present today, I should find out if my child got a D in science, because he’s supposed to give me the report card without any alterations. I don’t see how it’s an invasion of a child’s privacy to be able to look up his attendance on a website unless it’s also an invasion of his or her privacy to call the school to check on the attendance or for the school to call or send a letter through the mail when the child is absent. The only differences I can see is that it’s possible some parents will check on the website, but wouldn’t call , and that it’s likely that students will be able to intercept the phone call or mail before it gets to the parents. But if it’s not a invasion of the student’s privacy to notify the parents of an absence, or missing homework or a failing grade, how does it suddenly become an invasion because the student can’t interfere with the notification? If having this information available to the parents on the website invades the students privacy, then so does any other means of providing that information. It’s the act of providing the information that is the invasion (if there is one), not the means by which it is done.
My sister was the same way as Maureen’s son. She lied repeatedly about what homework she had and whether it was done, basically for the entire time she was in high school. By the time Mom found out through other means, it was too late: the class was already cut, and/or the homework assignment missed. Mom simmply wasn’t as devious as my sister, and parenting shouldn’t be a contest of deviousness anyway. A system like that doesn’t reveal anything the parents wouldn’t have a right to know anyway. Plus kids lie to schools, too; more than once, my sister would ditch school and pretend to be my mom when calling the attendance office to say she was sick.
I’m sure if Mom had had a quick and easy way to check on my sister, she would have. It’s not a matter of inferior parenting skills; some kids are just wired differently than others. I was Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes, and I had the same two parents and grew up in the same house, and I never once blew of fhomework or ditched class. Believe me, it’s an eternal mystery why my sister and I are so different from each other.
Obviously there will be times that you have to let kids make their own mistakes and clean up their own messes, but there are times when a hands-off/I-don’t-wanna-know attitude is dangerously irresponsible. Show me a few “good kid gone bad” stories and I’ll bet you can find a few where parents gave kids more than enough rope to hang themselves and then let them do it.
In my opinion, this system lands smack-dab in the middle-ground between “surveillance parenting” and “It’s 10:00. Do you know where your children are?” Arguing that a parent should not be able to look at their child’s grades is bizarre in the extreme to me. To equate it with spying, especially since the same results can be achieved with a phone call to the teacher, is simply nonsensical.
I am a single parent of 5 children. Being a single parent is tough and I am always looking at other parents and monitoring what they do to keep their families safe, happy and emotionally stable.
I have found the MORE parents participate in the kids lives…stay in touch with teachers…attend PTA…question the kids all the time (who, what, where, when)…attend all open houses…monitor their friends, etc… the more stable the child was. So IMHO I think this is a good idea!