This is a bit of different perspective but I have to say that I have very mixed feelings about online grades. I tend towards the school of thought that K-12 years are as much about cultivating organizational habits and personal responsibility as they are about anything else. While I do think that a teacher should communicate by phone/email/letter if a student is consistently late with, or missing assignments, I also think that there is an important lesson learned when a student misses deadlines and then sees the results on their report card. Eventually, IRL, we no one checks up on us. If we don't pay our bills on time, meet work deadlines, etc. we are faced with consequences. Some guru out there (maybe from Love and Logic?) talks about letting kids experience the consequences of their actions while they are young and the consequences are still "small". Relatively speaking, during the elementary and middle school years at least, the consequences ARE still small, even if they don't feel small to the child. My worry about online grade reporting is that it seems to shift the responsibility for staying on top of work/assignments to the parent and away from the child. I'm more than willing to add consequences to the natural consequences after my DD has experienced them (e.g. if she brings home a report card full of missed assignments, I'm willing to point out the results on her report card and let her know that until she makes up all assignments she will not have free time for other things). What I don't want to do is become her an excuse for not meeting her responsibilities ("but you didn't check my grades and tell me...."). Of course, so far she HATES being on the bad side of a teacher and it panics her into overcoming most of her organization flaws, so it's easy for me to take this position
