Homework Web Site Leaves Students with Few Excuses

New Orleans City Business
By Keith Brannon

     BLASTED TECHNOLOGY. It's rendering so many cherished childhood experiences obsolete.

     Students seldom write out book reports by hand anymore. Even the idea of going to the library to thumb through volumes of bound encyclopedias seems quaint when today's youth can surf through dozens of encyclopedias on-line without leaving the house.

     Now progess is about to swallow up another childhood right of passage: forgetting homework.

     Excuses like "You never gave us the assignment," "I couldn't get my homework done because I was absent yesterday," and "The dog ate my assignment sheet" are going the way of the eight-track cassette as more schools post homework assignments and test schedules on-line.

     The Harahan-based Homework Site is one of several new companies across the country hoping to capitalize on the trend. In January, the company began posting syllabi, homework assignments, test schedules, and even lunch menus on-line at www.thehomeworksite.com for some local schools, including Academy of The Sacred Heart, St. Christopher the Martyr and St. Paul's School. The aim: to help students keep track of their work load and keep parents informed.

     "The parents are really excited about it," says Gail Detillier, technology coordinator for St. Christopher the Martyr school in Metairie.

     She says students like going on-line if they forget assignments, but they don't like the tactical advantage it gives parents.

     Simply by logging on, parents can verify their children's "no homework" claims, says Sacred Heart spokeswoman Liz Manthey, who has two daughters at the school. "It's a nice balance of power."

     The Homework Site has signed up 29 schools in 10 states and one in Canada so far, says Gene Becker, vice president of sales and marketing. It charges between $695 and $1000 per year for the service, depending on the number of teachers at the school and range of information posted on-line.

     "This is something the students and parents are looking for today," Becker says. "And the teachers are on board too."

     The site uses the same format for every school. Teachers use a password to log in and post assignments for each class they teach. They can plan two weeks ahead or map out the entire school year. They can update or change assignments whenever they log on.

     Principals and administrators have their own password, allowing them to check staff assignment lists. Students and parents also register their names and passwords to log on from any computer. They put in students' class schedules, and assignments for each class are automatically listed on one page. Parents can look ahead to see when tests are scheduled. They can also download new assignments if their children are at home.

     "If you are at home sick, you don't have to call all of your friends and find out what the homework is," Manthay says. "You don't have an excuse."

     Unlike other similar sites, The Homework Site shuns advertisements. It also excludes flashy graphics and advanced multimedia, allowing students to download Web pages quickly.

     Sacrificing style for usability can be a drawback for older students used to interactive Web pages chock-full of mini-movies and color pictures. Sacred Heart's High School teachers decided not to subscribe to The Homework Site in part because of its spare appearance. Instead some teachers post their own Web pages featuring more elaborate lesson plans and multimedia on the school's Web site, www.ashrosary.org.

     "They wanted to tailor make their own pages," Manthey says.

     Becker says the company tries to accommodate schools that want to add more features by incorporating links to the existing school Web page.

     "This really is not intended to take over a school's Web site but rather to supplement or enhance it," Becker says.

     He says elaborate faculty sites can take up to 30 minutes per day to update while his site takes teachers only five minutes to change.

     Since Sacred Heart high school teachers aren't required to create the Web pages, not all class have homework assignments on-line. But all middle school teachers must incorporate The Homework Site in their curricula, says middle school Principle Kathleen Campbell. She says more than 90% of the 232 students in Sacred Heart's middle school have computers at home.

     Gauging use is tricky since Becker and information technology managers at the company have not tracked the the number of student visits at individual schools. The site has processed more than 101,322 page views from students or parents at all participating schools since January.

     The Homework Site primarily targets parochial and private schools. The private sector tends to incorporate new technology and curricula more quickly than public school systems. Private school students are also more likely to have home computers, especially in Louisiana, says Becker.

     So far, Comeaux High School in Lafayette is the only public school in the state using the system.

     "It's not going to be for all schools," Becker says.

     The Homework Site has not yet turned a profit. The company invested more than $400,000 to develop the software over the past year and hopes to recover the cost within a year.

     The concept was the brainchild of Becker and Steve and Thomas Russo. The three, who own Web hosting and design company Spire Network Services, wanted to develop an Internet application that they could mass-market. Since Becker and Russo are both married to teachers, they knew the trials schools face in getting information to parents and students.

     Creating a homework site was a natural progession, because the market is wide open, Becker says. There are more than 108,000 schools in the U.S.

     Running the site involves few employees, and overhead is low since the schools enter and update the information themselves. The company is looking for venture capital primarily to increase its sales and marketing staff to enroll more schools.

     The company wants to sign on 3,600 schools within the next five years, Becker says.

     "We strongly believe that this is the wave of the future. This is going to be as common as using the fax machine or a cell phone," he says.