eSembler

You should have received a phone call by now telling you about the wonderful new online system that Pasco County is using to help parents, students and teachers link resources to improve education.

This new system is called eSembler and Pasco County teachers have been using it since the beginning of the school year to record your child's absences and report card grades. Now, it will become available to all Gulf High School parents so that you can check your child's attendance and quarter grades. Some teachers have put individual assignments online so that you can monitor your child's work and grades. Please be advised that teachers are not required to use the grade book portion of the program.

This system is user friendly and all parents can access the online information at any time. We have more information on our website at www.gulfhigh.org and we encourage you to go online to learn how to create a user ID to log in and view your child's attendance and grades.

Please make sure you know your child's name as it appears on the school's records, their six-digit student ID number, date of birth and zip-code. Your child's student ID number can be found on their report card. Report cards for second quarter will be given to students on January 19. If you would like to access the system before that date, ask your child for their student ID. All students should have their ID number committed to memory. For security reasons, we will not be able to give out student ID numbers at the school.

We hope you are as excited as we are that you can access your child's attendance information and quarter grades online any time of day! Please remember to go to our website for complete instructions.

Attendance

Students who have more than 6 absences in a quarter or 10 absences in a semester, excused by a parent or unexcused, are subject to the following:

• Loss of participation in extra curricular activities (including athletics, clubs, field trips, prom, Grad Night, and all school day events where tickets are sold).
• If a student is excessively absent during a quarter the restriction will begin at the start of the next quarter.
• Exceptions to excused/unexcused: Medical notes, judicial appearances, approved religious observances, and approved School Related Absences.
• This policy also refers to driving privileges: Skipping of even one class will result in the loss of student driving privileges: When the student exceeds 6 absences in any class during the quarter driving privileges will be revoked for the next quarter.
• There will be no refunds for lost hang tags/parking privileges.

Parent Survey

From January 28 - February 28 you are asked to participate in the parent survey which will provide valuable information about our school. The survey will be available online. You may access the survey by visiting the District School Board of Pasco County Home Page at http://www.pasco.k12.fl.us. Under the heading, "What's New," click on the link called Parent Survey. We hope you will take the 10-15 minutes to complete the 25 questions on the survey. Once the window closes, the Research and Evaluation Department at our District Office will compile the results and share them with our school in the spring. These results are very important to us because they will be used to help us develop our school's Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP) for the 2006-2007 school year.

We will have computers available at the school during this time frame for you to complete the survey. You may also access the survey through your home computer or any computer with Internet access. If you are unable to access a computer, we have a paper-and-pencil option you can complete. Please notify the school office and we will send you a paper-and-pencil version of the survey for you to complete and return to the school. Thanks for your support.