For years, students have received progress reports and report cards in the same way: on paper.

Now, thanks to Assistant Principal Joe Anderson, those same reports will be distributed in a more modern way: digitally.

Teachers have requested this in the past, particularly given that many students and families have access to Parent Portal, but it’s been difficult to introduce. 

A change to another outdated tradition last summer made this easier for Spartanburg School District One.

“We went with digital registration, so we had an accurate email for all of the parents and students,” Anderson said. “It’s just easy to email directly to the parents instead of putting them in the hands of the teachers first and then the kids give it to the parents.”

Anderson said the hope is that this new method will help improve communication between the school and parents and ultimately benefit students.

“(With a paper report card), you can hand it to the students, and they could leave it in the classroom or in their bag and forget about it, or it just gets lost or just not give it to their parents,” he said. “This way, it goes straight to the parents. They will know how to help their kids with what they are struggling with.”