MSNBC The Site
April 11-12, 1997. See how families are benefiting from Intouch Online.

CNN Computer Connection Headline News
January 31 - February 2, 1997. In depth look at Intouch Online from the perspective of parents, teachers, administrators, and students.

KABC News
November 26, 1996. Marc Brown takes a look at how parents are keeping track of their teens with the help of Intouch Online.

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SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: It's a dream for most parents and a nightmare for most kids, having Mom or Dad know exactly how they're doing at school at any given moment. It's reality now at one school, the first in the country, and all it takes is Internet access and a password.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) Morning rush hour in Arcadia, California as parents drop off their kids at the local high school.

KATHRYN QUADE, MOTHER: Have a good day. I'll see you later.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) Although Kathryn Quade won't here son KJ again until dinner, she still knows what he's up to at school. That's because when Kathryn gets home, she can log onto the Internet and find out KJ's grades, his test scores, even whether he's going to class.

QUADE: I've been involved in my son's schooling since he went to kindergarten and when he went to high school, he felt it would be better if I wasn't there as much. But I'm still involved. I mean, he's our only child and I want to know what's going on.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) Martin Pluorde is the Principal of Arcadia High School and speaks from experience when he says most teenagers don't always tell their parents what's going on at school.

MARTIN PLOURDE, PRINCIPAL: I know when I was in high school and my parents would say "How was school today?," "It was fine." "What did you do?" "Ahh, nothing." I think that's a typical conversation in American households.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) But Plourde and a company called Edulink Systems are hoping that will change with a program known as Intouch Online, Internet Student Information System.

Teachers like Shari Litsey fill out attendance forms which are scanned into the school's main computer system. That information, along with progress reports, class schedules and graduation requirements, is downloaded to a secure web server every half hour. So with Internet access and a password, a parent can instantly assess how his or her child is doing in school, 24 hours a day, from anywhere in the world.

MADELINE ANTILLA, TEACHER: A man who signed onto the system was telling me that he was able to check his son's grades and whether he got a progress report or not when he was on a business trip in Maine. And that's really nice because we have a lot of two working-parent families and they're gone a lot. And they want to stay in touch with what their kids are doing.

KATHRYN QUADE: Shall we send it to Antilla?

K.J. QUADE, STUDENT: Sure.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) Parents and teachers say their communication has improved thanks to Intouch Online. Links on the web site make it possible for parents to send e-mail directly to the student's teachers.

KATHRYN QUADE: I don't have to wait for a phone call. I don't have to call and leave a message. I can say what I need to say and know that they will generally pick it up the same day or within a day or two.

SHARI LITSEY, TEACHER: Because I have more parental contact, I pay attention to those students. I know exactly what their parents concerns are. And so, those students needs then are in the front of my mind.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) Though Arcadia's adults have embraced the program, the students were, not surprisingly, less than enthusiastic about the extra parental oversight. When kJ found out his Mom was tracking him online, his reaction was no different.

K.J. QUADE: I thought "Oh, great." I mean, I was sort of surprised that she wanted to do that. But then again, I knew why.

INTERVIEWER: Why?

K.J. QUADE: Because I hadn't really been doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) Which, in this case, meant going to P.E. Through Intouch Online, Kathryn found out kJ had been cutting class.

KATHRYN QUADE: (laughs) Well, I logged on and I went to the Attendance and I saw that he hadn't been going to sixth period. And my stomach sort of went "Ohhh, where has he been?" So I immediately found out then that that teacher was online and I contacted him. And we found out then that, well, he wasn't leaving school, he was not where he was supposed to be. So that was a very immediate result.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) Though Intouch Online might seem a little big brother-ish, Plourde says giving information to parents is the best way to educate their children.

PLOURDE: It's really not so much spying, but it's a source of conversation around the dinner table. To say "Oh, well I see you did really well in your math class," or "I saw that your band director didn't excuse you from that absence last week and you need to move on that." So, I think it really adds to that conversation.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) Sheila Dubin teaches parents how to raise teens. She agrees that parents need to know what's going on with their children, but says they should be careful with that information.

SHEILA DUBIN, PARENT EDUCATOR: I think it's important that if parents do have access to this that they tell their teens that they have access to it, and they're going to use it, and that they talk to their teens beforehand -- before they actually even go into the site. And if their teens have some feelings about "Well, you don't trust me" or "Why do you need to know this information?", I think there needs to be a lot of communication between the parent and the teen about why it's important for a parent, or why it's important for this particular parent to know.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) As for kJ and his Mom, they were able to navigate the parent-child trust issue.

K.J. QUADE: When she first got on, I think she thought that she couldn't trust me as much. But then, I am working harder to get my stuff together and this is a thing to prove to her that I am more trustworthy. And I think she likes the fact that that's happened.

KATHRYN QUADE: Now that kJ knows and other students know that this is in existence, maybe it'll give them a little pause for thought and help to make them more responsible... I hope.

O'BRIEN (voice-over) So when kJ is doing things that wouldn't make a mom proud, at least she's more likely to know about it.