By Karen Pegueros
Students should be able to satisfy their curiosity about grades by checking them on the Infinite Campus website or app. But as the saying “Curiosity killed the cat” suggests, checking grades is now so complicated being curious is not worth the pain that comes with using Infinite Campus.
Last year CCSD used Parentlink, but this year, the district decided to change the software to Infinite Campus. The first few weeks of school nobody knew their grades because the software was having technical issues. Endless technical issues…
Almost two months into the school year, parents and students are still having several issues with it. Students are actually wishing for the good old days to come back with Parentlink. The school district decided to use Infinite Campus to save money, but honestly with all the technical difficulties, it wasn’t worth it.
Parents recently received a letter in the mail with their login information. The system crashed when those hundreds of parents attempted to log in at the same time. This may be convenient for students with poor grades, but this can’t go on. Parents should have the right to be able to look at their children’s grades without the system crashing on them.
Parents and students aren’t the only ones having issues with Infinite Campus. Teachers are constantly complaining about Infinite Campus being difficult to use, especially with simple tasks like taking attendance or moving a student’s seat. It seems like teachers are spending more time trying to figure out the new system than they are on their actual living breathing students.
Infinite campus is ten times more confusing than Parentlink. Students have to scroll down and click several icons just to see a single graded assignment. Before, checking your grades was as easy as one, two, three. Now, it takes twice as long just to see if you aced your math test.
There is an app for Infinite Campus that is slightly less confusing, but it is not perfect. To receive the most updated grades, the app must be manually refreshed. Every. Time. This tricks students into thinking they have different grades when, in fact, they have changed.
Another difficult aspect of this new system is when the fresh information is uploaded to the system, it immediately uploads to your account. So if you received a bad grade, you do not even have time to go home and break the news to your parents. Infinite Campus will have already done that for you. The same thing goes if you are absent which, in the end, might help cut down on unexcused absences.
CCSD should have stuck with Parentlink. After all students do not have nine lives.
