Parents will no longer have to go into schools to sign up for the city’s new student data portal, the education department announced this week.
The city has created a new online registration system for NYC Schools, the website meant to provide easy access to student grades and attendance. When the city unveiled the new system earlier this month, parents were told that they would need to come into their child’s school with photo ID to register — prompting complaints from parents and parent coordinators, who said the process was unnecessarily inconvenient.
“We listened to families and to best enable them to engage in their child’s academic career, we have made it even easier for parents to track data about their child using the NYC Schools account,” said Chancellor Carmen Fariña in a statement.
The city told schools to send home letters this week with instructions about how to register online with a special code and their child’s student ID number. Each letter will include an “Account Creation Code” specific to each student. Parents will then be able to use the code to set up their login and password. Families can still register in person and will still have one account for all of their children.
The city originally framed the in-person sign-up process as a data security measure meant to verify the identities of those given access to student information.
But that didn’t go over well with some parents, who took to Twitter to express their concerns.
The portal is a mobile-friendly tool available in 10 languages for families to view information about their child, such as attendance records, grades, and state test scores. (Scores on the state math and English exams, as well as Regents exams, will be available after they are released this summer.) The new system replaces ARIS, the much-maligned data system in use from 2007 to 2014.
Tiffany Lewis, the parent coordinator at Abraham Lincoln High School, said the sign-up process was “a known concern from parents.”
“We live in a world where everyone wants everything as fast and convenient as possible,” she said. “It was a good move from the DOE.”