In 1985, my  husband brought home a Macintosh computer. It was a turning point in my life, allowing me to develop new skills that made me a more effective communicator, and dramatically increased my productivity - moving my career miles ahead.  

The Internet holds the same promise for our schools. Soon, web page design and construction will be as basic a skill as English and arithmetic are today. We must make sure that our students,  parents, teachers and administrators take every advantage of this technology. We must introduce web based tools one step at a time.

How will we achieve this? Here are a few examples:

Paper, paper... and more paper

We can publish many documents on the web, instead of printing and mailing them. I know that not everybody has access to a computer, so we will need to maintain a paper system while we address that problem. Here are some of the things that I see in the mailbox or on paper that could be better done on the web:  

Extra course study
materials

Course catalogs

Online surveys 

Lunch Menus 
(Already on FUSD www site)    

Homework assignments

Newsletters 
(PTA will use FUSD www site)

Course test dates

Registration Information

Research project coordination and instruction

After-school activity schedules

Special recognition notices

Requests for volunteers for school promotions

Homework Assignments

Currently, teachers duplicate assignment sheets and hand them out. There is no reason that these sheets could not be put on a web site for students to print. Yes, we'll still need some paper copies.. but far fewer than we have today!

Grades and Tests Scores

I have been fortunate enough to have my son taught by teachers who use an automatic grade tracking system. Every week, I received a progress report with test grades, homework grades, and upcoming assignments. It kept me closer to my son's work, and it saved the teachers time. No more surprises!

Can We Do This?