The new tool is an online portal designed for parents who want to be kept abreast of their child’s day-to-day progress, both in and out of the classroom. It’s similar to the portal already used by students, myUTMartin Portal.
Inside the UTMartinParent Portal, parents can find their student’s schedule, final and midterm grades, attendance alerts, and financial aid information, as well as resources that families can share and discuss.
“My thought is that every student needs someone checking up on them, following up with them,” Cartmell said. “And who cares more about that student than the parent? It gives parents a tool to start a conversation.”
When designing the portal, she said, the university knew it was important to not add any new work to an already overburdened faculty. Any student information included in the portal must already be reported elsewhere to the university.
Cartmell said it’s now just a careful process of streamlining those existing tasks.
“For example, instructors are required to report attendance for aid purposes,” she said. “So we took away that process and replaced it with these attendance alerts for the portal. We’re very aware of the faculty’s time”
It was also important to honor student’s privacy.
While parents of tax dependent students are privy to this sort of information already, students must specifically opt in to the portal through a release form. That way, the students are at least aware of what information their parents are accessing.
Cartmell admits she’s guilty of some helicopter parenting herself.
Recently, she said her son–usually an A or B student–bombed three midterms. After seeing the grades posted in real time, Cartmell was able to quickly intervene and help her student get back on track, an impossible task for a parent who waits until a semester is over for a progress report.
“Helicopter parents are always out there swooping around,” Cartmell said. “They’re always going to want to be involved, but they need direction. We took the helicopter parents and we gave them a landing pad.”
Follow Jake New on Twitter at @eCN_Jake.
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