School Ups Grade by Going Online reports on a technology I’ve been expecting to see for years:
Until last year, Walt Whitman Middle School 246 in Brooklyn was considered a failing school by the state of New York.But with the help of a program called HIPSchools that uses rapid communication between parents and teachers through e-mail and voice mail, M.S. 246 has had a dramatic turnaround. The premise behind ‘HIP’ comes from Keys Technology Group’s mission of ‘helping involve parents.’
The school has seen distinct improvement in the performance of its 1300 students, as well as regular attendance, which has risen to 98 percent (an increase of over 10 percent) in the last two years according to Georgine Brown-Thompson, academic intervention services coordinator at M.S. 246.
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Available in over 60 schools nationwide, HIPSchools was created by Brady Keys Jr., a 67-year-old retired professional football player turned entrepreneur. The system allows teachers to post homework assignments and parental announcements to a website, and students and parents can check on them at any time. Messages are sent out to parents giving homework assignments and letting them know of parent meetings. And the parents are notified if their child is tardy.