MHS Musings: High School Online

Following the sound of the bell at the end of the school day, most students around the nation can be seen packing up their books and departing the school and walk away from any access to their classes, teachers and grades.

It's not the case at Millburn High School thanks to the innovations of Edline, school emails and PowerSchool.

Edline is the online information center for the entire school district, but it is especially critical for high school and middle school students. Each individual class has an Edline page managed by the classroom teacher. These pages are updated daily for students to see the day's homework assignments, to download PDF files of handouts and worksheets, to find links and webquests related to the class content and to see a calendar of all upcoming due dates and assessments. Students and their parents can access their class pages through password-protected accounts and are expected to visit the site on a daily basis.

The district is entering its fourth year using Edline, which also has designated pages for each school club (like the Key Club, the Forensics Team, the Quiz Bowl Team, and the Fall Musical), academic department, and athletic team.

Parents can also use Edline to manage their child's academic schedule and to access important forms and newsletters (the MMS and MHS PTO newsletters are now exclusively available via Edline).

In addition to Edline, the high school implemented a new online program last year called PowerSchool. With PowerSchool, students and parents are able to log into a password-protected website to access all grades. After teachers input assignments or assessments into their grade-book computer program (installed on every faculty member's laptop computer), the grade is transferred onto PowerSchool for students and parents to see.

Parents also have access to their child's attendance records through PowerSchool.

Thanks to PowerSchool, students no longer need to manually calculate their average grades each time they receive a new grade. In fact, some students have PowerSchool set as their home page and admittedly are "obsessed" with checking the site several times per day. With PowerSchool, students are no longer able to hide low grades from their parents. I believe it's beneficial to the MHS community as it will encourage students to work harder and achieve higher.

Finally, if students have questions for their teachers, they don't always need to wait until the next school day to ask them. All teachers in the district are given email addresses (the format is firstname.lastname@millburn.org) available for student inquiries, absence notifications, and extra help.

The essential online tools provided by Edline, PowerSchool, and email allow for Millburn High School to still be somewhat in session—whether the building is open or not.