BENTONVILLE -- A new digital application in use at the high school is allowing teachers to communicate and share concerns more effectively with each other about students they have in common, officials said at Monday's School Board meeting.
Andy Mayes, director of technology, said the dashboard application provides each student's profile with information such as that student's grade point average, testing results and attendance record.
Bentonville High School
Enrollment at Bentonville High School was 4,437 as of Sept. 1. The freshman class was the largest with 1,188 students. An additional 89 students were enrolled in the high school’s alternative education program, Gateway.
Source: Staff report
A teacher may use the platform to share insight about a particular student; that comment may then be seen by one or more of that student's other teachers, depending on how it's directed. Mayes provided a sample comment: "Tyler has not completed his last two homework assignments and is struggling to pay attention in class."
A teacher also may share, for example, that a certain student appears to be depressed, Mayes said.
A teacher's comment may be "elevated," which triggers an alert to school administrators, depending on how severe the student's behavior appears to be. That will lead to some kind of intervention with the student.
The application "allows staff to interact with each other to really rally around that student with a level of support we haven't been able to provide because we're so large," said Superintendent Michael Poore.
By funneling attention on specific students whose behavior is problematic, the application will help staff members better identify those who are struggling with some kind of mental illness -- often the root cause of failure in school, Mayes said.
The dashboard application was developed by a college student who interned with the district over this past summer, Mayes said. The district is testing it at Bentonville High School this school year.
Some board members expressed security and privacy concerns.
Mayes said the application comes with as strong a security system as what banks use with their online portals. Teachers, however, must be careful to log out of the application when they're done using it, either on their computers at work or on their smartphones, he said.
"There's always risk," Mayes said.
Teachers have access to dashboard information only about their own students. Escalated comments go only to administrators, Mayes said.
Board members Joe Quinn and Grant Lightle wondered about the "editorial leeway" afforded to teachers when making judgments about a student's behavior. Their comments might unfairly prejudice that student's other teachers.
"All the teachers are going to get a negative view of that kid," Lightle said.
Mayes acknowledged the concern, but said the teachers are professionals.
"They're trained in this, extensively," he said.
Teachers may view past comments made about their students, but only those made during the current school year. Comments made before that are archived but may only be accessed by an administrator, Mayes said.
Lightle also raised a liability concern, asking what would happen in the case of a student whose record showed many comments about him but no intervention efforts by the school.
"The worst thing is to create a record and not do anything about it," Lightle said.
Travis Riggs, board president, said even if the school recommended counseling for a student, there's no guarantee the student's parent would follow through on it. Riggs also suggested getting district attorney Marshall Ney's opinion on the matter.
Quinn said he'd like to see a cross-section of teacher comments -- with names redacted -- in a few months to better understand what kinds of problems teachers are seeing.
"The good, the bad and the ugly," Quinn said.
Other school districts have heard about and inquired with Bentonville about the dashboard application, Mayes said.
NW News on 10/06/2015