With an eye toward streamlining data and making the school enrollment process easier for parents, Fulton Public Schools is now implementing a new online registration program.
Starting June 17, families will be able to sign in through the district's online Parent Portal Access and register their children for the 2013-14 school year.
Making registration easier
According to a recent letter sent out to district parents, advantages of this new system - as opposed to the previous registration process which required an in-person visit to each building where a student would be attending school - include:
• Common family records, such as medical and emergency contacts, can be completed at once.
• Student records can be individually updated from existing information.
• Parents and guardians can review notification items traditionally distributed in student handbooks, such as technology usage guidelines, field trip consent forms and media consent.
• Parents and guardians can verify completion and review documents by checking a box.
"When you look at the registration process, there's a lot of stuff to do for each child in the district and parents have to come in every year and fill out a new card," Superintendent Jacque Cowherd said. "Now, if you have kids already here in the district, you can sit down with the family data and do it once, then go on to the information for each student and it will pull up data already in the system and you just check it."
In addition to making registration easier and faster for parents, Cowherd noted that even small differences in how registration forms are filled out each year under the previous system can cause problems with district databases.
"It really came to light this year when we went to an electronic system for our buses and planning routes - the same address entered in a different way can result in different directions," Cowherd said as an example. "We've been working to clean all of that up. The consistency of data is a real plus for us."
Get registered
The only things needed to complete online registration is a valid email address and Parent Portal access. For help with either of those, contact the Fulton Public Schools technology office at (573) 590-8040.
Online registration can be completed from any computer with Internet access starting June 17. For those who do not have Internet at home, Fulton Public Schools has set up a schedule for parents to use district facilities:
• 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on June 18 and 26 at Bush Elementary and Fulton High School
• 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Aug. 1 and 7 at all district buildings.