Instead of rifling through a flood of papers, Natalie Janiszewski opens her e-mail to the eSchoolnewsletter - her family calendar by her side - and takes note of news and announcements from her child's school.
"I think it's nice to get it from the horse's mouth," said Janiszewski, mother of two children in the Howard County school system. "Ideally, we should be able to rely on every one of our children to bring home every single thing, but that's just not the case."
The eSchoolnewsletter, a free e-mail subscription service that provides a direct line of communication between schools and parents, has changed the way parents receive information.
After signing up, parents receive e-mail from their child's school as well as countywide messages from the central office. The content of the e-mail ranges from the mundane - a rescheduled PTA meeting - to the unexpected - the recent arrests of high school teachers at Glenelg, River Hill and Marriotts Ridge on charges of sexual offenses involving a minor.
"It's really one of the primary ways we communicate with parents and families because you can do it so quickly," said Mount Hebron Principal David Brown. Regarding his two elementary school-age children, he said, "I depend on eSchoolnewsletters for accurate and up-to-date information."
PTAs, boosters, guidance offices and clubs submit information to the school principal, who approves the content sent out in the school-specific newsletters. The schools' e-mail also congratulates exceptional students and staff members. At the high school level, eSchoolnewsletters frequently contain information on scholarships, college visits and extracurricular activities.
The eSchoolnewsletter's immediacy helps administrators effectively address sudden scheduling changes such as rained-out games and emergencies.
At Atholton High School, 92 percent of students have at least one family member receiving the electronic newsletter.
"I think it helps parents feel more a part of their students' education because they have more information about what's going on in the school, and it leads to more conversations," said Atholton Principal Marcia Leonard.
The eSchoolnewsletter has grown to about 200,000 subscribers in Maryland and 55,000 in Howard County since Lisbon Elementary School parent Douglas Parker started the service in 2002.
"This is a dream come true for me," said school system public information officer Patti Caplan. "We are able to [reach] almost everybody with this."
