Secure Access To Your Student Performance Records
UPDATED 10/05/09 - GHCA is working hard to better delineate between different "tracks", for example, students taking college prep classes vs. students in a general or remedial track. SURRAnet is being modified to more clearly reflect these differences, but this will take time. Please refer to the comments section of your student profile in the meantime for this information.
GHCA is currently transitioning from a four-quarter grading system to a linear single-average grading system. The differences are small, but significant enough that you need to be aware of them.
In a four-quarter system, each quarter is a "closed container" that is averaged with the other quarters to produce the final grade. This system has a number of flaws, including:
The single-average grading system works differently in that the final average is calculated dynamically from all grades on record for each subject. In other words, the final average is the average of all assignments starting with the first assignment issued at the beginning of the school year to the last assignment issued at the end. This produces a completely fair and honest average, since no unbalancing is introduced.
It also removes the stress of "closing" a quarter, since it removes the closed containers of the four-quarter system. The course is closed when it is finished, and this finish date is not determined in advance (though usually it will coincide with the end of the school year). This allows for much greater flexibility, especially during a dynamic school year.
SURRAnet is currently being redesigned to use the single-average grading system. Due to the complexity of this transition, the reports SURRAnet generates will look very similar to what you are used to. We will still generate official reports four times per year, but the averaging system will be single-average based. A report does not mean that grades are closed for a specific quarter. Remember that grades do not "close" until the course is finished. We can, however, use the four reports to determine honor roll placement and academic achievement over a concise period of time.
Are you confused? Once you see the system in action, you'll realize that it's not so different after all. By generating reports every 9 weeks, we can provide the feedback mechanism that academic quarters provided while removing the flaws such a system introduces. Feel free to email Mr. Surran if you have any questions about this new system.
SURRAnet is a student information system (SIS) that tracks a variety of data to allow the administration, teachers, parents, and the student to track his / her performance at school. SURRAnet offers a number of tools to the GHCA faculty, including computerized gradebooks, attendance records, discipline records, the ability to print report cards, and more. The Student Profile is the student's and parent's access point to SURRAnet.
SURRAnet is developed and maintained by our network administrator and computer science teacher, Michael Surran. Mr. Surran has done the vast majority of this development on his own time, and so he retains the copyright to the software. This software may someday be released under an open source license to other schools that are interested in it.
The information accessible online is protected by user ID, strong passwords, and encryption technology. This means that only those who have access to a specific user ID / password pair can access that student's profile (therefore do not give that information out to just anyone). More importantly, the actual database itself is stored on a secured server that is not directly connected to the Internet. What you see online is a copy of summary data such as grade averages, attendance totals, etc. No sensitive information, such addresses and phone numbers, is stored on our website.
Any changes that are made to the database (new grades recorded, discipline infractions, etc.) are uploaded to our webserver twice a week. Teachers are encouraged to keep grades up-to-date on a weekly basis, though the grades posted usually lag about a week due to the time required to score papers, tests, etc. Sometimes a teacher's other responsibilities will cause her to fall behind in entering grades into our database, therefore each course lists an Updated date which shows when grades were last entered for each subject. It is also important to know that some subjects (particularly practicums and certain electives) are graded only at the end of a quarter and thus won't change online on a week-to-week basis. If you have any questions concerning a particular subject, please set up an appointment with the teacher of that subject.
While the information provided by this service will usually be quite accurate, GHCA makes no guarantee that the information online will be mistake-free. Many teachers take extra time at the end of each quarter to double-check the database against their books, enter makeup work and redos, and record extra credit, all which can cause the final average recorded on the report card to vary quite a bit from the last online update.
It is important to understand that at the beginning of a new quarter, the quarter average is based on only a small number of assignments, and therefore may not accurately represent the student's actual level of comprehension. As the quarter progresses and more individual grades are averaged in, the quarter average will better reflect the student's performance in that class.
SURRAnet was written primarily with high school requirements in mind, and while it does scale well with upper elementary, our lower elementary school is using a radically different grading system that is not compatible with SURRAnet.
SURRAnet has been in operation for a couple of years now, and the Online Interface is considered well-tested. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a glitch or two hiding in the complex code that runs SURRAnet! If you find a bug, the first thing to do is make sure you are using the latest available version of your Internet web browser. The browser plays a critical role in rendering the Interface, and old browsers lack the technology needed by SURRAnet. If that doesn't help, send me an email at webmaster@ghca.com with "Bug found in SURRAnet" in the subject line. Be thorough in your description of the problem, and I'll fix it as soon as I can.
If you follow Mr. Surran's blog, then you know that SURRAnet is under development, or should we say, redevelopment, for changes in the upcoming 2009-2010 school year. Those with a passion for the nuts and bolts of software design, computer programming, and the "behind the scenes" of SURRAnet may find SURRAnet's Development Blog of great interest. Since SURRAnet is open source software, you may even someday wish to get involved yourself!