Blair Students Dismiss Role of Student Member of Board of Education

MCPS students have a full voting student member on the the Montgomery County Board of Education. Students vote on their representative. Why is it that Blair's students now say the decision to drop Edline was a surprise for them? Their student Board of Education member was at the Board of Education table for all of the discussion and votes on this change. Students were fully represented during the entire years long process. 

Oct. 26, 2017

MyMCPS: A decision we had no say in

MCPS faces major problems due to implementation issues in a decision without student input

From middle school to high school, many students had a best friend named Edline, who knew everything about them from their daily attendance, to the grades they received on assignments. But when school started this year, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) told them that Edline was no longer being used. With no recollection of giving input into the decision, students found themselves crashing head-first into a new system with almost no warning.

http://silverchips.mbhs.edu/story/13623

$360,000: Another No-Bid Pearson Product for MCPS

On Monday, February 25, 2013, the Board of Education will unanimously vote another $360,000 to be spent on a Pearson product.  The product is PowerSchool.

PowerSchool looks a lot like Edline that MCPS claims they are eliminating.

Note the PowerSchool product is being purchased without taking any bids from any other vendors. Why no bids? No competition from other vendors? What happened to Edline?

That's PowerSchool by Pearson, as in MCPS sold the curriculum to Pearson and we haven't made a dime in royalties.

Edline down

As MCPS nears the end of the first quarter, parents are reporting that Edline has not been able to update grades since October 18th, 2012.

Superintendent Joshua Starr's communication to parents about this breakdown is where? Press release? E-mail? Letter home? Twitter? 

Superintendent Starr was on the WAMU 88.5 Kojo Nnamdi show this afternoon.  When a parent called to ask about staying involved in their child's school Superintendent Starr didn't mention the Edline issue. 

UPDATE:  The Parents' Coalition contacted Edline directly about the failure of the MCPS system to update at the same time this post went on the blog.  A few hours later Edline began to update academic information again for MCPS families.

Edline Problems Persist

From MCPS: 

Widespread problem with grade upload on Friday September 16, 2011.Many classes have disappeared from students' Edline pages. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU CAN STILL GET TO YOUR INDIVIDUAL CLASS PAGES BY CLICKING ON THE NAME OF THE CLASS IN PRIVATE REPORTS. 

Edline grade reporting system down countywide

What parents are being told about the failure of the MCPS online grading and reporting database:

...MCPS implemented a new attendance and grading system at the beginning of this school year and there have been a few glitches... 

and 

...While students' classes, assignments and other links are posted on Edline, grades and reports have not been available to date. This is a county-wide issue with the link between Edline and MCPS's grading program...

Changing grades at Whitman

Readers of this blog may remember that in September 2009 the Whitman High School student newspaper, black&white reported on a glitch in the Pinnacle online grading program that enabled a student to change grades.

The link is being re-posted as the Churchill High School grade changing investigation continues.

Whitman's black&white student newspaper reports:

A student broke through security barriers on Whitman’s Pinnacle grading system Sept. 23, changing grades entered by several teachers.
The administration informed the affected teachers as soon as they discovered the incident...

...Administrators reported the incident to MCPS, which is currently analyzing the flaw to improve security for the future, assistant principal Jennifer Webster said.
“The programmers who wrote the [Pinnacle] program are using the experience to improve their security,” she said.
The student discovered a flaw in the security system and was thus able to access teachers’ Pinnacle accounts...