November 6, 2005

Dear Carmody 7th Grade Elective Computer Class Students and Parents:

Carmody Parent Portal is up and running! Please check your child's Parent Portal on-line for the final grade for the second grading period. Be aware that there might be a few changes before the report card is officially issued later this coming week, but at least it shows you what's going on, particularly with regards to missing assignments and tests. as addressed in the second and third paragraphs below. Both parrents and students should be able to examine the child's attendance and grades via the Internet on a 24/7 basis. Dr. Data will continue to attempt to post current grades every afternoon so you can view daily attendance and grades for daily updates before dinner. On days that Dr. Data should ever not have sufficient time to post grades before leaving school, he probably will try do so before breakfast of the next day so the family is always aware of the child's present academic status on a daily basis. Exception for example will be for November 7th when Dr. Data will be attending an in-service workshop at Warren Tech High School and consequently will not be able to grade papers until sometime on Tuesday. Regardless of when he posts grades, please bring any concerns to him sooner than later. If ever there are problems with the posted grades, please contact Dr. Data by e-mail at jkuzmich@earthlink.net so the matter can be resolved in a timely manner.

Any assignments/tests on the progress report with a blank grade, an "M" or a "zero" at the right side of the assignment means one of three things.

• Student was absent and consequently did not complete and submit the assignment to Dr. Data. Note: all assignments need to be made up with a deadline of November 4th for the second grading period.
• Never completed the assignment or did not do it.
• Completed the assignment and probably printed it out but never picked up the assignment at the printer and therefore did not submitt it to Dr. Data.

Solution for missing assignments? Since the Carmody Parent Portal (Infinite Campus) does not have an instant undo feature, it is possible that grades can get lost in their entry into the grade book. Two essentials things can help in immediately restoring any missing grades as identified below:

• Students are to put all returned assignments into their notebooks as permanent records so that they can easily validate that they did the assignment or
• Students whenever possible need to save their work on their server folder so that their saved work can be validated by printing it again or viewing it whenever needed.

Many important things to take notice of!

1. 25 extra-credits will be awarded to any student whenever there parent prints out a parent portal progress report nwith a parent signature and is submitted to Dr. Data once a week. Note: there with no limitation of the number of weeks exta-credit points can be earned between now and the end of the semester.

2. Be aware that every database assignment thus far given has had a companion clue sheet posted on the Internet with all procedures needed to find the answers. This should have had positive impact on students learning how a database search takes place because the searching procedures are readily avaialble for their use and study.

3. Deadline for making up/finalizing all grades for the second grading period is November 5th without any late penalties being accessed. Strongly suggest that makeup work be submitted before the final November 4th deadline. Tuesday, November 1, 2005 would be better to help alleviate any possible recording problems before submitting the second grading period grades to the administration for the processing of the report cards.

4. If your child doesn't have a B or an A grade, please refer to the web site entitled: "Success Guaranteed if Students/Parents Follow These Guidelines... at: <http://www.kuzmich.com/carmody/Success.html>. While no system is perfect, these guidelines should make a world of difference in helping your child obtain a satisfactory grade and in a timely manner by involving parents and students together in a unified plan with Dr. Data!

5. An improved Carmody Middle School web site has been created for the 7th Grade Elective Computer Classes at: http://sc.jeffco.k12.co.us/education/staff/staff.php?sectiondetailid=98057&sc_id=1129152153. It directly links to the class web site with specific links to make it easier to do all of your school browsing at the Carmody school web site at http://sc.jeffco.k12.co.us/education/school/school.php?sectionid=280 and then go directly to Dr. Data's classes without having to leave the Carmody web site.

6. The present database instructional curriculum unit began Monday, October 24, 2005. The database unit can be found at: <http://www.kuzmich.com/carmody/database_syllabus.html>. It has copyrighted material, so your child will need a special password from Dr. Data to access each and every assignment on-line. As before in the word processing unit, all instruction is web-based. But the difference is that all assignments have to done in school because the database data files are only available on the PC lab's computers. Thus, students can only make up missing/unfinished arrangements at Carmody Middle School. Whenever they need to complete any unfinished/missing assignments outside of classes, Dr. Data will generally setup makeup times of 2:15 to 3 p.m. daily on Monday through Friday in the PC lab. Sometimes on Wednesdays, there are faculty meeting which will closes the lab. Please have your child make arrangements with Dr. Data before assuming that the lab is available.
   • Note: there are special copyrighted instructional materials for each daily assignment also available on-line making the web-based instruction more valuable.
   • For those students and parents desiring to know more about the final project for the database unit which is due on Friday, November 11, 2005, please go to: go to: http://www.kuzmich.com/carmody/database_project.pdf.
   • See rubric for detailed guidelines at: http://www.kuzmich.com/carmody/dailyrubric.html on how the final project will be evaluated.

Hope this information is helpful.

Dr. Data