For decades, K-12 educators have known that parental involvement is one of the most powerful drivers of student achievement and school performance. What has changed significantly in the world of K-12 education, however, is that new web-based technologies have made it possible for schools to increase parental involvement in ways that were simply impossible before – using cost-effective technology solutions that have broad, sweeping impact across all subject areas, all grade levels, and at all performance levels – truly transforming the learning community.

At Edline, our mission is to provide the world’s leading technology solutions that help schools improve student performance by harnessing the power of parental involvement, supporting teachers, and engaging the learning community.

Our array of comprehensive and cost-effective K-12 technology solutions include web hosting, content management, information portals, and tools for classroom management, gradebook, notification, analytics, virtual storage and related technologies—all of which can be deployed individually or together as part of an integrated and comprehensive Learning Community Management System. Edline's solutions are designed to grow with a school’s needs and technology plans.

Consistent improvement in the performance of students has always been the goal of teachers and school administrators. Today, however, especially in the United States, regulatory mandates such as the No Child Left Behind act have raised the stakes for showing consistent improvement in student test scores. The parental involvement provisions in NCLB stress shared accountability between schools and parents for high student achievement.

Numerous major research studies continue to underscore the importance of family involvement to school performance. "When parents and schools collaborate to help children adjust to the world of school, bridging the gap between the culture at home and the mainstream school," one report notes, "children of all backgrounds tend to do well." ¹ Another major recent study found that, when normalized for family involvement, public and private educations are actually roughly equivalent in terms of preparing a child for life and work. ²

Other studies have highlighted the need for more proactive outreach and more constructive interactions among parents and teachers—that is, forms of communication that are richer than a simple e-mail, a student progress report or a note sent home in a school bag. ³

The obstacles schools face in harnessing the power of parental involvement primarily revolve around the issues of information and communication. Older children often filter what information reaches their parents, and younger children can rarely articulate the kinds of details parents want. In addition, the sheer volume of information that changes daily in a school environment presents a major communication challenge.

Although there are many different parenting styles, all parents of school-age children need current and relevant information to effectively apply the parenting styles that work for them. When parents have rich and timely information, they can use it to make a tremendous positive impact on the success of their children. They can:

• Provide assistance with schoolwork.
• Celebrate achievements and provide positive encouragement.
• Intervene when a student is struggling, avoiding “surprises” and preventing a small problem from becoming a large one.
• Help children learn important life management skills such as responsibility and planning.
• Foster a love of learning at home, and augment school assignments with family activities.
• Volunteer to participate in school, or for class trips and other activities.
• Build a stronger, informed partnership with teachers and school administration.

In some cases, timely information to parents can be a matter of very high stakes: the difference between graduating or not … between making the honor roll or not … between being eligible for a sports team or not.

Unfortunately, most of the legacy educational technology product categories—learning management systems (LMS), content management systems (CMS) and student information systems (SIS)—simply did not evolve with the goal of leveraging parent involvement as a driver of school performance. And the result, not surprisingly, is that these legacy product categories fail to maximize that objective.

For this reason, K-12 schools increasingly turn to Learning Community Management Systems (LCMS), to meet the specific purpose of increasing parental involvement as a core strategy in improving school performance and raising student achievement. For true success the technology needs to meet the unique requirements of parents and other key stakeholders in a K-12 environment—students, teachers, administrators and the IT staff.

Edline’s Learning Community Management System provides unique benefits to all school stakeholders:

• For a school's IT professional, Edline provides turn-key and cost-effective access to a robust, enterprise-scale platform for web communication—a welcome capability for schools with lean IT staff and, frequently even leaner IT budgets. Edline’s web hosting platform can be rapidly implemented—literally in hours. It requires minimal maintenance and costs less than a fraction of one percent of a school’s budget—something all schools can afford regardless of location or community.
• For a busy parent, Edline's website and portal solutions give parents the ability to find important information fast. A single sign-on, password-protected account provides personalized shortcuts to the specific classes, homework, reports and other information pertaining to their children. No need to remember multiple URLs and passwords, or to maneuver through a maze of disorganized web pages. The Edline-hosted website even sends parents email alerts when important new information becomes available.
• For a teacher, Edline makes it easy for teachers to post content onto their class pages and calendars with a single click, keeping students and parents up to date about classroom activities such as homework assignments, test dates, field trips, progress reports, projects and other resources. Teachers can include pictures, discussion boards, online assessments, a homework drop box, homework help, classroom expectations etc.
   
  In addition to classroom pages, web pages can also be easily created and managed for other groups in your school such as teams, clubs, departments, committees, and other school sub-groups. And of course your site will contain general school-wide calendars and information typically found on school websites such as the latest football scores, cafeteria menus, library information, PTA news and online forms or surveys.

We recognize that demands on teachers are ever-growing. So we have designed Edline products to save teachers' time with streamlined and more effective class administration, reducing phone calls and other inquiries from parents, and making it easier to communicate with one parent or several all at once. By communicating informed expectations and reducing “surprises,” Edline helps to foster a stronger sense of partnership between parents and teachers.

We encourage you to learn more about Edline's comprehensive, market-leading technology solutions for K-12 schools and about how you can harness the power of parental involvement and engage all members of your learning community in the common goal of helping students and schools fulfill their potential.

¹ Anne T. Henderson and Nancy Berla, eds., “A New Wave of Evidence: The Family Is Critical to Student Achievement,” National Committee for Citizens in Education, 2002.

² Harold Wenglinsky, “Are Private High Schools Better Academically Than Public High Schools?,” Center on Education Policy, October 2007

³ Charles V. Izzo, Roger P. Weissberg, Wesley J. Kasprow, and Michael Fendrich, “A Longitudinal Assessment of Teacher Perceptions of Parent Involvement in Children's Education and School Performance,” American Journal of Community Psychology, 27(6), 817-839)