Churchwerks info system working in schools

With Churchwerks, to be used in both elementary and high schools, parents with children in more than one school only have to familiarize themselves with one system.

The site is easily accessible for any teacher or parent with internet access, and they can log in with a personal, secure password.

Teachers can input students’ demographic data and/or attendance record, up-to-date class assignments, grade books and report cards. Parents can then log in whenever they want, keeping track of their student’s progress, and seeing if they have any homework before must-see TV. 

If students are sick at home, they do not have to rely on a classmate or their parents to pick up their homework for them; they can go to Churchwerks and check their assignments.

Schwalm has devoted most of her energies to the Churchwerks project, implementing the program in the schools, and training teachers and administrators how to use it. To her, the key aspect of this project is the “improvement of communication between teachers and parents.” Parents can keep track of their children’s academic progress and assess where help is needed before issues become large enough to require an alert from the teacher.

Antonia Taylor, principal at Assumption, said that Churchwerks training for teachers began in the middle of October. As well, select parents have been allowed to monitor their student’s records. Teachers have also posted their grade books on-line, allowing administrators to look at them over the internet, instead of having to physically review them.

School nurses have also been busy inputting into the system health immunizations, and student visits to the nurse’s office. The sacraments a student has received are also entered.

Taylor says that parents and teachers are both “very pleased” with the program. The fact that parents can monitor their children’s work is just “another tool to open the lines of communication between parents and their kids.”

For the 17 teachers at Assumption currently using the program, the new system means no weekend trips to school to input grades on school computers; with an internet connection, they can work right from the comfort of their own homes.

Judy McBride, principal at St. Mary, likes the “user-friendly” program, saying that it is “easy to use. Very self-explanatory.  The program tells you how to do each step.” 

As a committee member on the search team, looking for an SIS program, she volunteered her school to be one of the first to use Churchwerks.  Most of the teachers have been using the program for attendance and grading, but parents have not been given access yet. McBride also hopes to use Churchwerks for the production of report cards, as some schools have already done: “We’re doing more and more” each day, she said.

Mary Boyle, assistant superintendent for the Office of Catholic Schools, has said the diocese is taking the program “in small steps so everyone knows what they’re doing.”

Over 300 teachers in the diocese are currently taking attendance with this program, and entering grades and assignments electronically for more than 3,400 students. Next year, 10 more schools will start using Churchwerks, and it is hoped that by the fall of 2009, every school in the diocese will be using the program.