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Comment by aaplok | Hacker News Reader

From the article it looks like that information was delivered through a web portal. My kids' school has a similar system and unexplained absences are notified through the portal. School reports are delivered there too, though at least for that we get an email notification asking us to access the portal. Why the report cannot be attached to the email is beyond my comprehension.

Accessing that portal is a technological barrier not every parent can overcome. Judging by the extent of the problem in that particular school, it might be a common issue in the community it serves.

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I'm guessing information isn't put in the email because of federal privacy laws around education (FERPA). Email isn't considered a secure communication protocol since it isn't encrypted in transit, so schools can't email grades or other information related to education records. I'm guessing sending all messages through a secure web portal is just an easy way to avoid FERPA liability from the schools perspective.

I'm not in the US but you make a good point. They probably need to confirm parents' identities. An easy and well advertised low tech solution would be good for low tech parents though.

“There is a notice in your school portal.”, or “There is an unexplained absence. Access your school portal.” can be sent literally dozens of ways in the 2020s: SMS, email, Messenger, Instagram, phone call, custom app on Android or iOS, letter mail, etc.

I don’t want to tell someone what their ability is, but I have to believe that at least one of those will be the right choice for any individual parent.

There’s a good chance that those messages have to be setup by first logging into that portal which might not be easy or obvious to do. It could be made easy by having the default being sent mail notices every X days by default but it also could be that there’s some access code needed to create an account on some difficult to navigate website. In that case it’s likely that lots of parents who aren’t tech literate won’t be able to/know to access the portal or get the notices.

My point is that the portals and the configurations and whatnot don’t matter. The school should be able to easily and simply configure whatever the parent needs without requiring the parent to be tech literate.

The death of traditional phones has largely been overstated.

Even my dentist sends both SMS and phone calls for appointments. And they are a 2-bit operation. My doctor has a web portal but they rely on phones for important information like 'you missed an appointment without warning us'.

I'm struggling at the idea some random locked we form was sufficient for this critical information.

Emails can be deleted, go to spam, go un-opened, etc. The content of the web portal cannot. I'm confident logging into a web portal isn't difficult, and I'm even more confident assistance would be provided if this parent had asked.

16% of the US population is computer illiterate [0], mostly amongst the poor. If information is only accessible through a web portal you are de facto making it inaccessible to a significant minority.

Sure the parents could take computer literacy courses, access internet at the library if they don't have access at home, or navigate the school bureaucracy (not easy and not always friendly, trust me!), and we could still play the blame game. But ultimately if we add enough friction that 50% of our users fail to engage, perhaps a review of the system is warranted.

[0] https://www.air.org/resource/description-u-s-adults-who-are-...

Actual functional literacy might be a problem too, let alone computer literacy. Although if she can operate an iPhone maybe not in this specific case.

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