THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 24, 1996 TAG: 9605220233
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSAN W. SMITH, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 41 lines
Does your child have homework? What's for lunch in the school cafeteria? Has today's baseball game been canceled?
Now curious parents can call Oscar F. Smith High School and ask for the telephone bulletin board, listen to the directory, push the selected four-digit code and get answers to many of their questions.
ParentLink, an electronic telephone communication system, is up and running at Oscar Smith, the only school in Chesapeake to have implemented such a program.
The 24-hour system enables parents, students and teachers to send and receive the latest school news and to leave personal messages by using the telephone.
LeeAnne L. Rikard, a physics teacher, has spent much of this year working with the telephone system and with training other teachers.
``ParentLink is a great way to encourage better communication between parents, students and the school. Everyone benefits,'' Rikard said. ``The telephone hotline does not take the place of teacher-parent conferences. But it is a strong tool to keep parents and students more involved and provide more frequent contact.''
Administrators and teachers at Smith have been assigned a personal, telephone, bulletin board. By using a touch-tone phone, messages can be received or recorded. Parents and students just dial the school telephone number, 548-0696, for access to the message lines.
Judy L. Best, who teaches chemistry, informs callers of each day's lesson plans and the upcoming test day. Best has recited poems and even left extra credit assignments available only to those who checked her voice line.
Band and chorus information, senior class updates, lunch menus, athletic schedules, current student activities, directions to the school and community use of the building are some of the other recorded message selections.
Callers can leave messages requesting more information, call in an absence or schedule appointments.
The system can also be used to to send information, about the cancellation of a field trip or a reminder of final examinations for example, by telephone to the homes of some or all of the school's 1,700 students. by CNB