New Online Portal Coming To Brookline High School

Brookline High School students may run, but they have little space to hide.

New features are coming to the X2: ASPEN, or student information management system, allowing parents to monitor their children’s participation at Brookline High School. According to the superintendent report presented to the School Committee Thursday, parents will be able to view student’s demographic information, class schedule, Interim Progress Reports, Report Cards, and daily attendance on-line.

In addition to this access, students will receive class-specific information from their teachers, such as class assignments and due dates.

Superintendent Bill Lupini touted the parent-student-and-staff portal.

“We are very, very pleased about this,” he said. “When we looked at ASPEN in the spring, we deemed it not ready for prime-time. They’ve done a pretty major overhaul on its appearance as well as what is available. And we’ve gotten really positive reviews.”

He added one feature he found particularly appealing was that students are able to track where they stand against the high school requirement for graduation.

While noting she can see “many good things” coming from the portal, School Committee member Judy Meyers cautioned parents might have the tendency to use the technology to micromanage their son or daughter. She said that could lead the student to have decision-making problems in college without parental oversight.

“I’m just raising this,” said Meyers. “Maybe I shouldn’t be.”  

Lupini countered that the portal is an easier medium to exchange information that parents are already requesting.

“This is a great tool for teachers to provide information to parents that a lot of them are e-mailing and are asking for now,” he said.

Parents will receive their system passwords Oct. 13 during Back To School Night while students will be issued them during the week of Oct. 17.