The name—Dashboard—says it all. The Pittsburgh schools’ new Web portal for students and parents is designed to let them drive the educational process. Not just quarterly grades and announcements, but daily homework assignments and attendance records are available on the password-protected Web site. “You ask a kid, ‘Do you have any homework?’” says Donna Vlassich, the district’s project director of public engagement. “‘No, I don’t.’ ‘Yes, you do. This thing says you do!’”

Parents and students can use Dashboard’s calendar feature to schedule assignments, extracurricular activities and anything else they want. There are e-mail links to each of the students’ teachers. There’s even an automated feature that e-mails the parent any time the child is absent and when grades are available online—before the report card comes out.

One tool the district has used to get out the word on Dashboard is its system of Parent Educational Resource Centers (PERCs), opened in five schools in 2003. The bait used to get parents into the centers is a regimen of open-to-anyone classes in anger management, resume building, science, computers, drug prevention and more. The hook is information on how their children are being educated. “Even though you’re there for an African dance session, the conversation may be about math,” says Vlassich. “You can’t dance to the beat if you can’t count.”

The West PERC, at Langley High, hosted 2,500 people at its various events during the 2003-2004 school year, says Vlassich. A key offering was its intergenerational-dialogue sessions, which brought together the West End’s high school kids and seniors. “I said, ‘You guys are always out there complaining. Come in and give some positive input!’” says Theresa Smith, who coordinates events for West PERC. Both the kids and seniors responded to that challenge, and over the course of the year, the monthly sessions grew from about a dozen attendees to as many as 50 or 60.

Computer classes, too, drew capacity crowds, says Smith. Parents and students learned Dashboard and more, and Smith saw students teaching parents and vice versa. She also saw a new spirit of inclusion. “It’s important for these parents to get into the building,” she says, “and not just to get inside, but to have a say in what goes on there.”

The district is striving to open up more opportunities for parent input, besides the school board’s sometimes-emotional public hearings. Each school has a Parent-School Community Council, a roster of volunteers and a parent-teacher organization. Groups called Parent Communicators and Key Communicators bring concerns to the administration and information to their neighborhoods. Emerging Links may provide another avenue for communication, at the speed of light.

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