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Starting this Monday, August 18, parents
of Coweta County School System students will have the
opportunity to follow their children’s daily attendance, grades
and other school matters online, with the opening of the Parent
Portal.
Beginning on Monday, parents can visit their child’s school and
receive an Activation Key code which will allow them to set up a
Parent Portal online account through the Coweta County School
System’s Infinite Campus database system.
The Parent Portal lets parents access the most current
information for their children’s class schedules and
assignments, courses, grades, daily attendance, testing
information, student fees and other records, and includes other
features such as school calendars and notices and teacher email
links.
“We have never been able to offer this kind of communication
tool for parents before now, and I think parents are going to
find it very useful,” said Superintendent Blake Bass. “We hope
that this system will significantly improve communication
between schools and parents, and help them become even more
involved in their children’s education.”
A letter was sent home from schools on August 14 and 15
notifying parents of the new system and letting them know that
schools would begin issuing the Activation Key codes beginning
August 18. Parents may come by the school that day or anytime
afterward to receive their Parent Portal account code.
Parents will then be able to go to a Parent Portal link on the
school system’s website – at www.cowetaschools.org/campus – to
establish their account and their password. A user’s guide,
technical support information and other information about the
system is also available at the site.
The Activation Key that parents will receive consists of a
series of numbers assigned only to individual parents or
guardians on record at the school. The account it establishes
will allow them to only view their own child’s records.
Parents with children at multiple Coweta County schools only
need to visit one school, since the Activation Key is assigned
to them uniquely and will access the school records of all
children in their household.
To maintain security of student information, the passwords will
only be given out to custodial parents or guardians when they
visit the school in person. Parents should be prepared to show
identification, and complete a Parent Portal Acceptable Use
Agreement, which outlines rules for use of the system. Parents
are asked not to share their household’s unique code or the
password codes that they choose.
The new online system is possible because of the Coweta County
School System’s new Infinite Campus student information system,
which debuted last January.
Infinite Campus is a web-based student information system which
replaced Coweta’s older student database. The new system
maintains student records and transmits statistical reporting to
the state of Georgia., but is a more flexible web-based system.
The school system’s launch of Infinite Campus allowed the
district to establish the Central Registration Center at their
Werz Drive Central Office last January, rather than continue
registering new students at multiple school sites.
The data system allows teachers and schools to enter daily
attendance reports, grades, and other information directly in a
digital format. That capability allows the school system to
offer parents access to their child’s information through Parent
Portal. Parents who establish their Parent Portal account can,
in turn, keep up with their child’s daily and weekly progress at
school through any computer linked to the internet, at the home,
office or a public library.
Coweta County teachers made the transition to online grade and
record-keeping through Infinite Campus last spring. To test the
system and work out bugs, the Parent Portal system was opened to
teachers who had children in the school system throughout the
last semester of the school year.
“It worked very well,” said David Thibadeau, Director of Coweta
County School System’s Information technology department. “We
had a period of testing and transition, but the system worked
well and teachers and schools have done a good job switching
over to it.”
“I think parents are going to really appreciate this system,”
said Thibadeau. “Our experience last year with our own teachers
was that they really liked Parent Portal because they were privy
to so much information about their own children’s school
experience. Sometimes their children didn’t like it so much, for
pretty much the same reason.”
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