FARMINGTON – Parents are gaining new ways to keep informed about their children’s progress in SAD 9.

Nearly 50 percent of parents of students in grades four and up have taken a training session to use the online view-only program. As the word spreads, more parents want in.

Two more training sessions are planned at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 5, at the Mt. Blue Middle School cafeteria in Farmington and at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 7, at Academy Hill School library in Wilton, SAD 9 Assistant Superintendent Sue Pratt said.

The district is using a PowerSchool Parent Access Program, a student information system that lets parents access their children’s grades, attendance records, assignments and even comments from teachers. It also has general announcements listed.

SAD 9 is in its second year of using the PowerSchool program internally and opened up access to parents Nov. 6 after they participated in a training session.

Staff members have set up a demonstration model for training of a fictional student, Abraham Lincoln, an 11th-grader who lives in the Sandbox, who is not a very good student, Pratt said.

Lincoln received three Fs, a D, a C, and an A+, according to his on-screen report card. His best subject is music theory.

“We’ve given each parent user names and log-ins to get only their student’s information,” Pratt said.

Items in blue on the computer screen are links. Pratt clicked on a teacher’s name that appeared in blue and up popped the teacher’s e-mail address so a message could be sent.

You can also see when assignments are due and details of those assignments with some teachers posting assignments early. Parents can also have daily or weekly e-mails sent to them on student progress.

Tests and homework grades are also available. The attendance portion gives the dates of student absences and if they were parent-excused absences or not.

At the high school level, attendance is taken each period so that also appears on the screen, Pratt said.

It’s very user friendly,” she said, as she demonstrated the program with PowerSchool Coordinator Naomi Doughty on Tuesday.

Teachers are continuing to learn the capacity and some put more detail than others.

“The idea is it’s a communication tool between home and school, and our thought is it’s a really good communication tool between parents and students. That’s where the power is,” Pratt said.

Training has been done by Doughty, Pratt and other staff members Steve Heath and Barry Maguire.

Pratt said after the most recent training session she went home and checked the site, and about 60 parents were logged on.

Some parents are sharing their log-in information with their children so they can monitor their progress.

All parents need is Internet access and if they don’t have that at home, most libraries have it, she said.

“We’re still going to do traditional progress reports” Pratt said, which are written. “This is a real-time computer-generated progress report … It’s a pretty cool program. We’re excited and parents are excited.”

SAD 58 in northern Franklin County and SAD 43 in Oxford County are also using the program.

“We are just touching on the capacity of this program. We know there is a lot more that can be done with it,” Pratt said.