by Melissa Fajardo ‘13

I have a love-hate relationship with Edline. I love the ability of having 24/7 access to my grades but the downfall is that my parents have this access as well. Edline’s intention is to improve communication between parents, students and teachers via an all-in-one website solution. Then why do I take this convenience as one of the biggest sources of irritation on my life?

There is no stronger advocate for Edline than my mother who checks my grades on a regular basis. I have developed a theory that my household, along with households around the nation, would be less argumentative if parents were only permitted to check their child’s grades online three times a quarter: the beginning, middle and end.

Based on my own experience, parents expect to see constant, positive changes in grades. This becomes potentially problematic because the effort I put into my assignments aren’t always reciprocated onto Edline, meaning I could retake a quiz and the improved grade wouldn’t be updated online for weeks until the teacher had the time to change his or her grade books. That usually happens at their leisurely pace. This is where my theory kicks in. If parents check Edline every day, it is less likely to recognize a noticeable shift in their child’s grades because assignment reports aren’t realistically updated daily. However, if parents checked more periodically the graded assignments over time would accumulate and the improvement would be noticed.

My mom’s specialty is making me sit down with her next to the computer and go through the itemized assignment list of each class subject. When I walk past the computer room, I can always tell if my mom is on Edline because the page layout is hard to miss, with its gray colored background and navy blue tabs on either side. This is when I try to tip toe my way out of sight but sure enough I always get ordered to “pull up a chair.” I’m forced to explain why this grade is like that and why it hasn’t been improved yet. Naturally, arguing takes place because I’m saying one thing, but my Edline grade says another. I have no other choice but to make a time-consuming argument to convince my own mother that as soon as Edline gets updated, my grade will be less depressing for her to see.

In elementary school, we used to get a report card every quarter with grades decided by one teacher. In high school, we have to chase down seven different teachers in an effort to correct their human error of entering a wrong grade. We depend on Edline to tell us what our grades are which makes it all the more stressful when Edline doesn’t update because then we have our parents on our backs. Maybe my theory of restricting parents’ viewing of Edline to three times a quarter isn’t realistic because some parents would argue that they deserve to see individual grades for assignments whenever they choose. All I know is that I have strongly considered a plan to change my parents’ Edline account password.