How many times have you visited the counseling office this year to pick up an unofficial transcript? I presume for many students, you do not know because the number of visits is countless.
Maybe you needed to see your transcript to check if you were in danger of walking at graduation because you did not have enough community service hours. Perhaps you needed your transcript to enroll in an AP class. Or, for many, you may simply have been curious about your grades. Whatever the case may be, many students have walked in and out of the counseling office to pick up a piece of paper that holds valuable information.
There was once a time when the students of MHS had access to their grades, attendance, community service hours, standardized testing scores, and current class schedules online. This gloriously convenient time was just last year when we students could log onto Aeries, a program that is now only accessible by the teachers and staff of MHS.
The lines in the counseling office can get a bit ridiculous because of the number of students waiting to receive their unofficial transcripts. I am not criticizing the office staff for working slowly; in fact, it is amazing how organized they can be. Rather, I am bringing to light the popular demand MHS students have to see their transcripts.
If students had access to all their information on Aeries, life would be a lot easier. First of all, online transcripts save a lot of paper, and we all know how little paper we have at our school. Second, students do not have to worry about skipping break to sign up for a transcript or wait after school to pick one up. In other words, having access to Aeries would save a lot of time, not only for students, but also for the office staff.
Also, why shouldn’t we have access to our own grades, test scores, and more at any given time? Our teachers have access to my information and I believe we all should as well. It is not like providing students access to only their own information on Aeries violates anybody’s privacy.
I propose that Aeries, or some other form of online access to unofficial transcripts, should be made available to all students at MHS. It would be a lot more efficient in terms of time and money. Thank you to the office for continually supplying us with our transcripts, but I think it’s about time students can officially have their own access to their own information at any given point in their lives.