It’s that magical time in the summer, when Wilton Public Schools release information for student classroom and teacher assignments (for Miller-Driscoll and Cider Mill Elementary Schools) as well as class schedules (for Middlebrook Middle and Wilton High Schools). For all district students, that information will be made available via the schools’ online websites, Edline and Power School Parent Portal.
According to district director of technology Mathew Hepfer, that information will be accessible, depending on which school, sometime during the week of August 4. All of the schools will be working to actively notify parents as soon as the information is available online.
Already, Middlebrook has posted a banner on their Edline pages, noting that, “Student schedules will be available through the PowerSchool Parent Portal on August 7, 2014. They will not be mailed home.”
WHS will be posting schedules online on Aug. 6.
As for Miller-Driscoll and Cider Mill, Hepfer says, “Most likely it will be Aug. 5 or 6. There will be a big banner across the top of the [Edline] website, there will be a mass email sent out to parents via Edline, there will be an email with activation codes for anyone who is new to the district, or who is returning after having left the district,” Hepfer explains. “We will send an email based on the email [addresses] that parents have set up in Parent Portal, or if you’re in kindergarten or new, the email you used when you registered your children for school. It’s a much simpler system.”
According to Hepfer, things should be a little easier, especially for parents whose children are transitioning between schools. For those families, there’s no longer a need to get a code to ‘re-activate.’
“Edline has changed their system, so we won’t actually need to send out codes [to existing students]. For parents of children still current from last year–children in grades 1-12, you don’t need to do anything. If you’ve already created a user name and password in the system, you’ll keep the same user name and password. Even if you change from one school to another, you won’t need to re-register or anything.”
Also brand new this year, parents of kindergarteners and families new to the district no longer have to wait for to receive a paper letter via snail mail. Now all activation codes needed to log on to Edline and find out the class information will be emailed directly to parents, the same day as everyone else.
If you go onto Edline right now, before the week of Aug. 4, you will still see last year’s information–for example, if you had a second grader at Miller-Driscoll last year, you’ll still see M-D on your account now, even though your child will be starting third grade at Cider Mill in the fall. But that will automatically adjust sometime the week of Aug. 4.
“Parents won’t have to change anything. You’ll be matriculated into the new school and you can use your same user name and password automatically when we do the data rollover. When we do the rollover, your child will be ‘deleted’ from the old school and entered in the new school, which will appear on your Edline.”
Yes, admits Hepfer, the rare mistake happens. “Every once in a while the data isn’t 100 percent. Say 10-15 parents will see both the old school and the new school, they’ll just have an extra school. It may take us a couple weeks to clean up that data. Sometimes parents don’t care, they’ll go the whole year, and just keep choosing the new school. Unless they let us know there’s a glitch, we can’t clean it up. But they’ll still also see their child in the correct school with the correct teacher.”
If, on the odd chance, the information isn’t there when the schools make schedule and teacher information available next week, parents can contact school webmasters.
“At the bottom of every Edline page, there’s a “click here to contact the webmaster” email link, and that email will go to the schools’ webmasters–they are hot-to-trot on the days we open up to get back to those emails. That’s the most efficient, first stop. Parents can also call the schools during school hours and the school secretaries can help also.”
Hepfer also encourages everyone to make sure that they do have an activated email in the Edline system. He says you can double-check that by logging into Edline and going to “My Edline” and click on “Manage Account.” Any email address you’ve registered will have a green dot next to it if it’s valid and activated.
“The most important thing is to make sure you have an activated email. If you don’t, contact your school’s webmaster. Having an activated email helps you out because the schools, particularly Miller-Driscoll and Cider Mill, use Edline for notification. The PTA uses it, Continuing Ed uses it, and the schools use it to remind parents about anything that you normally used to get paper for.”
He also says all parents, K-12, should log onto Power School Parent Portal and check the family contact information listed their for their account. “Parent Portal is the other way the schools communicate, with bus route information, grade book information for middle school and high school families, and when there are snow days, the data for mass notification comes out of Parent Portal.”
Any users who have forgotten how to access Power School can do so via this link or through the Middlebrook or Wilton High School Edline pages. There’s a link under the “School Resources” tab, for “Parent Resources,” and the Power School link is right there. If you go there now, you’ll hit a screen that says, ‘Sorry, we’re closed for the summer!’ But Hepfer says it’s something that should be done before school starts.
“You don’t want to wait until the eve of the first snow day and realize you had an old work email in there, or your old cell phone number, and not get the text message about the snow day. You want to take care of that early in the year..
One other thing that Hepfer does acknowledge is how eagerly almost everyone waits for this information. “I would urge everyone to be patient. The best way is to scroll to the bottom and you’ll see the link where it says, ‘Problems? Click here to contact the Webmaster.’ that email will go to the person who can reset the password. If you’re feeling very anxious, call the school and the secretaries can reset passwords as well.”