Remember To Do Your Part

This may be new information for most parents, but beginning this year all high school teachers will enter grades through Pinnacle. The result is that grades are available electronically to students and parents at all times. The middle schools have been providing feedback in this manner for a couple of years, so many of you may already be accustomed to this type of access.

I encourage you to check your son or daughter's grades at regular intervals. We will no longer send interim reports to the home because access through Pinnacle is more timely and provides much greater detail.

To access Pinnacle/Parent Connect go to www.gpschools.org and click on the top center portion of the page for Pinnacle, Parent & Student Connect. Make your selection using your assigned PIN and PASSWORD. There are two viewing opportunities for internet monitoring: Parent Connect and Pinnacle. In order for you to take advantage of these viewers, once you have successfully logged in to Parent Connect, you must provide the district with a current email address. Please be sure to enter this information into Parent Connect by using the account menu item (top, right-hand side of Parent Connect screen).

To access electronic gradebook information, select Pinnacle. For Pinnacle, remember to select South High at drop-down window. To view attendance, schedule, demographic, cafeteria debit balances, click on Parent Connect.

Please note: Parents have their own PINs and passwords for Parent Connect. Students and parents share the same log-in and password for Pinnacle. It is the student ID number and network log-in password. If you don’t know your child’s ID number and password, please ask them to share this information with you. In the meantime, the district is in the process of mailing Pins and Passwords to all families. Please look for this information during the week of 9/22.

The first marking period ends on Friday, October 31. That means that October 3rd would normally serve as the midpoint of the first quarter. Grades entered by that date would provide the data leading to an interim report. Use this place in time to determine if your son or daugher's progress is where you feel it should be.

On the other hand, one drawback of this type of access is that parents may "hover" over every single grade and overreact to a missing or late assignment. When in doubt, please contact the teacher via email to get a more ocmplete picture.

I wish you well as you monitor this type of grade reporting, and I believe it has the potential of making us more effective. After all, "knowledge is power".