MCPS Keeps Pushing Back Date to Stop Using Edline

By Emily Gilburt ‘16

In 2009, MCPS began using a web-based program called myMCPS that was intended to replace and enhance the features of Edline, which serves the MCPS community by providing communication of grades, school events and other information. However, as of 2014, the myMCPS program is still only accessible to school staff. Although the school system has indicated that myMCPS will become available to parents and students this year, there has been no formal announcement regarding a switch from Edline to the internal web-based system.

The switch from Edline to myMCPS has proven more difficult than anticipated due to the necessary financial investment as well as technological hurdles to provide certain safeguards for the website in order to disable students from accessing material that is off-limits.

Currently, myMCPS is used by school staff as a portal for organized school system information, school and student data, and internal communication. For more than a year, MCPS officials have been describing the benefits of the program once it becomes fully functional. “The expansion of myMCPS to include parents and students will provide a community forum for document sharing, accessing curriculum and resources, video conferencing, sending messages about key learning experiences, and monitoring progress on students’ work,” said Kara Trenkamp, the director of the Department of Instructional Technology for MCPS, in a January 30 article in The Warrior.

According to a memo written to the Board of Education in 2009 by former Superintendent Jerry Weast, the myMCPS program was established with a goal in mind of eventually eliminating external systems, such as Edline. “By eliminating the use of multiple external systems, we can budget our resources more effectively,” Weast wrote five years ago.

In the time since, MCPS has continued to indicate its desire to stop using Edline. “The school system would consider ending the use of Edline if it was determined that myMCPS can fully replace it,” MCPS spokesperson Dana Tofig said, adding that it would be ideal if the school system could use just one online system. It is possible that some changes could be ready for this school year, stated Tofig to the Gazette.

“The goal was to try to expand myMCPS to provide more access for students. Edline is great. It is wonderful. It is a product that is run by an outside organization and we wanted to bring it in house and expand on it,” stated Tofig in a February 2013 article.

In the meantime, students and parents will continue to use Edline until myMCPS is available.