Parent/Guardian Role

Parents/guardians are a key element in the success of online students. It is very important for parents to encourage students to keep up to date with assignments and meet deadlines. Students are expected to log in and let parents see course grade books. Parents are provided the opportunity to access the student online Orientation to review the policies and procedures of eAcademy.

Parents should be aware that eAcademy courses are not connected to the district's student management system, so progress and grades will not be available in ParentVUE or StudentVUE. We encourage you to sit with your student for a few minutes at least weekly. Ask them to log in to their course and show you the online gradebook for updates on progress as well as teacher feedback. This brief share time, if done regularly, can help you keep continuously apprised of your student's progress and grades. Additionally, our teachers will CC parents or email them directly if their student falls behind in progress or their grades are low.

Conferences

eAcademy will provide information regarding instructor availability for parent-teacher conferences and parents are encouraged to connect with eAcademy teachers in addition to attending conferences at their student's traditional school.

Student Self-Advocacy

eAcademy supports student growth in self-advocacy skills. Students should take reasonable responsibility for their education and not rely on parents to ask questions. We recommend that students CC parents in emails to staff and staff will Reply To All so that parents see the responses. After initial communication, parents may certainly become more involved as needed.

Things to Know — Program Highlights

• Unless you have a confidential issue, it should be your student emailing questions, as this is their course. We appreciate parents monitoring and seeking additional information as needed. When students email, they can CC the parent/guardian so that you see their initiative in following through, and the response from the eAcademy office or their instructor.
• Parents are asked to respond to emails from the student's course instructor within 24 hours or sooner, to acknowledge receipt or provide information as requested from the instructor.
• There is rarely ever the need to contact the instructor for grade information, as students can log in to the course management system where their course is, and show their online course grade book at any time. Students can email grading questions to their teacher and CC a parent/guardian when they send their email.
• Teachers are expected to respond to communication within 24 hours, five days per week. None of our teachers are full-time online, and they do have regular classroom responsibilities. They will not be able to respond within minutes of communication sent by you or your student, so please be patient.
• Just as other professions may have a five-day work week, eAcademy teachers are not expected to teach online seven days per week. They should indicate somewhere in the course information or syllabus which days they are available to grade or respond to student email. If students have an urgent request that needs immediate attention during their teacher's scheduled time off, they should contact Randy Warner.
• eAcademy offers high school level courses which have enforced assignment deadlines as indicated in each course's published calendar of due dates. Students should take this seriously as there are grade penalties for late work and deadlines after which work may not be accepted. All courses are graded.

eAcademy and the Kansas State Department of Education emphasize that there must be a partnership between parents/guardians and teachers of online students. Parents are the most important teachers in our program! Evidence clearly correlates parental involvement and student success in online courses. For this reason, we are asking you as the parent or guardian to take on the responsibility of helping your child succeed, as outlined in the following points.

Required Parent/Guardian Support For Enrolled Students

• Monitor progress and achievement by checking grades and progress regularly. This can be accomplished by having the student log in to the Learning Management System where their course is located, and then accessing the online gradebook built into the course. Teachers will have scores for graded work posted with necessary feedback. Please be aware of and support due dates posted for the course so that timely progress enables student achievement. Edgenuity Health courses have a built-in pacing guide indicating if a student is progressing at an acceptable pace, and have a firm course-end deadline.
• Communicate any questions or concerns about student progress with the course instructor/course supervisor, and/or eLearning coordinator. This includes informing the eAcademy office of changes in contact information.
• Support the student in complying with the eAcademy Code of Student Conduct, including the policies and procedures that define plagiarism in the eAcademy program.
• Ensure that appropriate filters or other monitoring procedures are used to prevent access to inappropriate content when the student is at home or another place of learning outside of the school. All required or recommended websites listed in course materials have been approved for use by the instructor and eAcademy staff. Approval does not extend to web pages beyond the specific links provided. It is the student’s responsibility to abide by all eAcademy and OPS computer policies.
• Acknowledge that the student will need to be online a minimum of one hour per day per course in order to make adequate progress in online course work. Compacted summer courses generally require a minimum of two hours per day per course online.
• Participate in any progress review communication that may be needed. Any student failing or not on schedule at the time of review may be counseled to drop an eAcademy course, with no grade recorded.