Classwork websites enable helicopter parenting

There was a time when parents had to wait weeks, even months, to find out how their child was performing at school.

Report card day was a big deal. These days, middle school report cards are just a formality. I’ve known all along what grades my son was getting.

As a matter of fact, knowing what grades he’s getting is turning into an obsession of mine.

Infinite Campus, Edline, Edmodo, Google Classroom, CampusPortal — there are so many websites and programs Hawaii schools use to inform parents and students of each day’s assignments and virtual grade books that let parents spy on every single mark their kids get in class.

And though I can go days without scrolling through my Facebook feed, I can’t stop myself from checking my son’s grades two, sometimes three times a day. I anxiously await the daily emails alerting me to his upcoming deadlines and any incomplete assignments.

There’s even an app for that. Of course there is.

At open house a good chunk of time is spent going over the procedures for logging on to these sites, and parents are encouraged to check their middle schooler’s homework planner daily and backpack weekly, just as we did when they were in elementary school.

All this communication helps me to avoid merely asking, “How was school?” followed by the inevitable monosyllabic reply, “Fine.” Instead I can ask specific questions over the dinner table. “How’s that interplanetary trading card project coming? What themes do you see playing out in the last chapters of ‘Life as We Knew It’?”

And this technology-rich environment sure helps on days when my son is at home sick. No longer do you need a friend to physically transport missed assignments to your house. My son emails his teachers and logs in to Google Classroom to download his homework.

I know he did this even as I was at work because I saw a grade post for his online reading-comprehension assignment.

The thing is, I’m not sure he’s better off for my constant tracking of his every academic move. In fact, sometimes I even feel sorry for him.

Back when I was a kid, if I got a bad grade, I’d tuck it away at the back of my portfolio, and Mom was none the wiser (until now, sorry Mom). As long as I brought my grade back up by the end of the quarter, she never needed to know about that D on my geometry test.

Those days are gone.

It’s absurd that I know the differences in the grading algorithm between his language arts and science classes. And yet I feel remiss if I’m not checking the websites regularly. If my child’s grades start to slip, the teachers assume parents are aware of the situation with so many ways to be informed.

Still, we send our kids mixed signals when we exhort them to be more responsible and to take charge of their education, yet check their bag and nag them about homework.

Of course, like everything else in this world of tech-enhanced parenting, the answer lies in the constant balance and re-balance of oversight versus accountability. If only the schools had an app for that.

“She Speaks” is a weekly column by women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Donica Kaneshiro at dkaneshiro@staradvertiser.com.