March 25, 2005

‘School Loop’ helps students remember homework … and more

By Alex Ho
Times Intern

Like most students her age, Silver Creek High School freshman Christine Hair at times stresses over homework.

Mark Gross, the EVHS teacher who developed School Loop software, demonstrates the value of the program.

Sometimes she doesn’t know how to do the homework, sometimes she wants to ask her teacher questions about the homework, and sometimes, she forgets what it is. “There’s always that moment of panic when I forget my homework,” Christine says, “but in most cases it passes pretty quickly, only to resurface when the grades come out.”

School Loop to the rescue. Launched in the beginning of the 2004 school year by Evergreen Valley High School teacher Mark Gross, the program has been successfully deployed in 21 schools in the Evergreen area, with more than 20,000 students registered. Software engineer Tom Burns and retired teacher Dede Tisone help manage the program.

Gross spent 20 years in magazine publishing and Internet development before teaching at Evergreen High School.

Prior to developing School Loop, he created two other Web sites for EVHS students and teachers to connect with the outside world.

“I couldn’t believe how hard teachers and people in schools have to work,” Gross said. “A lot has to do with the way teachers work in isolation from each other, support staff, parents—even from the information that would help them.”

The first school to receive the School Loop treatment was Capuchino High School of San Mateo School District, with EVHS launching soon thereafter. Both schools spread the word by mouth. Many schools have adopted School Loop as their staff-student communication system, including Mount Pleasant and Silver Creek.

The program is currently a pilot for ESUHSD, meaning it’s a test program, and is currently free for the schools.

However, the test period ends this school year, and it will cost $2 for every student and teacher to make the program profitable, although the pilot schools will get a discount.

The program has received rave reviews from its users.

Andrew Mam, an EVHS student enrolled in the program, also says it is useful for finding out his homework. “Without School Loop, I’d be so behind right now that recovery would be impossible.”

The program is simple. “Even a technologically-challenged teacher like myself finds it easy to use,” Susie Martin said.

Teachers have found that School Loop allows them to update their school content quickly and easily. Jesse Griffin, the drama instructor at EVHS, illustrates how easy it is to update. “In one five-minute session I can post homework for students and parents, contact all of a student’s teachers and parents, include documents for the students to use at home, recommend links and give the parents an e-mail they can simply reply to with questions and or concerns.”

As a student at Silver Creek who uses this program, I believe that School Loop has a lot of potential, but teachers should use it more consistently. At Silver Creek, the program is not widely used yet, although our school marquee has been flashing the Web site as a way for people to join.

I also found a few bugs in the system, but Gross responded to all my problems quickly and efficiently. Don Dawson, a statistics teacher at Silver Creek, also believes that this program has potential, that it “could prove useful in the future as more quirks are removed and features added.”

Dawson said that there seemed to be a bug that prevented him from updating all of his algebra students’ homework at once, as opposed to being able to do that for his statistic students. He added, “One limitation is if the student does not have Internet access at home.”

However, Gross mentioned that a phone system would soon be implemented.

Martin voiced a different concern: For the program to be effective, people actually have to use it. “As with anything, our constituents must meet us in the middle,” she said. “If I post it, and School Loop sends it, the parents must read it, understand it AND enforce it at home.”

When School Loop becomes ingrained in the culture of the school, it can truly be useful. And that is good news for students like Christine. “It’s nice to know that if I ever do forget my homework, I can just look for it online.

For more information and to view demos, go to the Web at: http://www.schoolloop.com.