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In the coming school year, LA Unified plans to launch the Parent Access Support System Portal (PASSport), an interactive online tool to make it easier for parents to get more involved in their children’s education.

As a one-stop portal, it’s designed to give parents access to real time student information and district resources as well as services that are specific to their children to help them better support their child’s success in the classroom.

Through PASSport, parents and guardians will also be able to access a variety of online tools where parents can monitor attendance, view grades and assignments, track standardized test results, submit online forms and applications for district programs, and help guide their student in preparing for and graduating from high school. Parents will be able to email their teacher with questions or concerns.

“One of the biggest hurdles for parents to obtain information is navigating the numerous offices responsible for all of services offered throughout our district,” LAUSD’s Chief Operating Officer Enrique Boull’t told LA School Report.

“After an initial registration similar to an online banking experience, LAUSD PASSport links the parents’ children to them and follows them throughout the resources connected in the application,” he added.

Boull’t said that PASSport will make the application process for school meals and volunteer programs easier because forms will be pre-populated, saving parents time in completing the application.

But PASSport also assists schools, allowing parents to update their phone and emergency contact information online, eliminating the need to have an administrator enter the information into the system.

Boull’t said that the PASSport represents the district’s new approach for entering, managing, analyzing and reporting all data connected to any student. It’s part of the district’s larger effort to increase parent participation in their children’s academic growth.

“Most schools utilized their websites to share activities happening on their campuses, but very few were interactive and provided live information pertaining to attendance, assignments and progress toward graduation,” he said.

The district, which leveraged existing resources for PASSport, had the parents in mind when designing the site, Boull’t said.

“The design was totally parent-driven based on focus group responses to what our parents felt was most important for them to stay connected with their children and schools,” he explained, adding, “Our District is 100 percent committed in involving our parents in their children’s education. Obviously, the best way for parents to be engaged at school is for them to be informed on what and how their children are performing in school.

“We believe LAUSD PASSport will assist them with this effort.”