Transition Period for Version 3.0
A new and highly improved version of SURRAnet is now being phased-in at GHCA. This is the biggest upgrade since we brought version 2 online a couple of years ago. Due to the scope of this upgrade, we'll be bringing individual sections of SURRAnet online one feature at a time. This phase-in process will take a number of weeks during the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year. Once the majority of the systems that our faculty uses are available, we'll then enable our web-based reporting system (where you are now).
Since it can take three or four weeks to build up a sufficient number of grades to have an accurate report, we hope you'll not find this interruption in service too inconvenient. You are invited to contact your child's teacher at any time for updates while the online reports are down.
If you'd like to track what's happening with SURRAnet 3.0, you can visit the SURRAnet Facebook page for occasional updates. If you click "like", these updates will be brought to you in your Facebook feed.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is SURRAnet?
SURRAnet is a student information system (SIS) that tracks a variety of data to allow administration, teachers,
parents, and the student to track his / her performance at school. SURRAnet offers a number of tools to the
faculty, including computerized gradebooks, attendance records, discipline records, the ability to print
report cards, and more. The Student Profile is the student's and parent's access point to SURRAnet.
Why is it called SURRAnet?
SURRAnet was designed and written by Michael Surran, who currently serves as our System Administrator. Mr. Surran is a software developer when not working for GHCA, and SURRAnet is one of his products. He provides SURRAnet to GHCA free-of-charge.
Is my child's information safe online?
The information accessible online is protected by user ID, strong passwords, and encryption technology.
This means that only those who have access to a specific user ID / password pair can access that student's
profile (therefore do not give that information out to just anyone). More importantly, the actual database itself is stored on a secured server that is not directly connected
to the Internet. What you see online is a copy of summary data such as grade averages, attendance totals,
etc. No sensitive information, such addresses and phone numbers, is stored on our website.
How up-to-date is the information?
Any changes that are made to the database (new grades recorded, discipline infractions, etc.) are uploaded nightly to our website. Teachers are encouraged to keep grades up-to-date on a weekly
basis, though the grades posted usually lag about a week due to the time required to score papers, tests, etc.
Sometimes a teacher's other responsibilities will cause her to fall behind in entering grades into our database,
therefore each course lists an Updated date which shows when grades were last entered for each subject. It
is also important to know that some subjects (particularly practicums and certain electives) are graded only at the
end of a quarter and thus won't change online on a week-to-week basis.
How accurate is the information?
While the information provided by this service will usually be quite accurate, GHCA makes no guarantee that
the information online will be mistake-free. Our teachers are encouraged multiple times throughout the school year to double-check
the database against their books, enter makeup work and redos, and record extra credit. If you have any questions concerning the grades recorded for a
particular subject, please set up an appointment with the teacher of that subject.
It is important to understand that at the beginning of a new school year, the course average
is based on only a small number of assignments, thus it will be greatly affected by single assignments. As the school year progresses, the the average becomes much more statistically sound, but this also means that it has more "inertia" - it becomes harder to change the average the later in the year it becomes. It is thus best to proactively work to raise low averages early on and not wait until the last days to attempt to affect a change.
Why is the lower elementary excluded from this service?
SURRAnet was written primarily with high school requirements in mind, and while it does scale well down into our upper
elementary, our lower elementary school is using a substantially different grading system that is not compatible
with SURRAnet.
I think I found a bug - what do I do?
With SURRAnet 3.0 being new program code, it's likely that a computer glitch or two have yet to be discovered. If you find a bug, the first thing to do is make sure you are using the latest available version of your Internet web browser. The browser plays a critical role in rendering the Interface, and old browsers lack the technology needed by SURRAnet. If that doesn't help, send me an email at sysadmin@ghca.com with "Bug found in SURRAnet" in the subject line. Be
thorough in your description of the problem, and Mr. Surran will fix it as soon as I can.
SURRAnet Development
SURRAnet is open source software released under the Artistic License 2.0. The database engine, HTTP server, and XML dynamic code generators are written in Python, while the client-side interface is coded in Javascript. If you are interested in the "behind-the-scenes" of SURRAnet development, visit the Facebook SURRAnet Page for updates, screen shots, etc. To download source code or to see Mr. Surran's other products, visit his SURRAtech website.
