CTLS Parent

I am glad the county put the online software together for students, parents, and teachers to communicate. I am a CTO and know the cost involved and timelines that have to be accomplished to have the system deliverable as more than an MVP! Thank you!

I am extremely disappointed in Cobb county schools and their preparation for virtual learning for this school year. There has only been one day since school started that the program worked as it should. The parent app has very little useful information about what my child is doing in school and I get way too many unnecessary updates. I am also shocked that the school system failed to realize that not every child has a parent at home with them. Some children are with grandparents or babysitters and Cobb county has made it EXTREMELY difficult for working parents to stay on top of this virtual learning. I cannot address emails in the moment regarding glitches/issues with the system while I am at work. Maybe for parents with older children things are easier but for my 1st grader this system is nearly impossible for us to manage. Strongly considering pulling my child out of school and finding a home school curriculum until classes resume F2F. I am at a loss for words at how after all this time to prepare virtual learning got worse from the spring when they had no preparation.

I found a bug in this app which keeps creating a new calendar called CTLS in my iPhone. I found out I had over 30 calendars created in my iPhone which was creating a mess on it. I had to remove the rights to access my calendar in iPhone settings and manually delete over 30 calendars which took me quite a time. Please fix it. I also agree with all the comments on the last review. I’m a software engineer father and I see many bugs and also get a bit lost as we have to go over different websites and systems to find the assignments for our kids. I can imagine the hustle it might be to not computer savvy parents.

At first, I didn’t see the need for this app and now that we’ve learned how to use it, we appreciate this tool very much. It’s a direct line of communication with the teacher and school. It’s simpler than trying to search for staff email and going to my email to compose one. I’m not constantly checking my phone, the alerts keep me informed and we are never overwhelmed with information. Between the number of alerts, the wording and app layout, it’s just right.

This “solution” is just so disappointing. Can you guys (faculty) all agree on one platform please?? As a working mother, this is just ridiculous. So after 13-14 hours at the hospital, I have to come home and figure out the tangled maze that is virtual learning in Cobb county. You realize that sitting just out-of-view of the kids faces on the screen, 99% of the time there is a crouched hidden parent trying to figure out what is going on and switching on and off live platforms? Like what?? I can’t even post a video of my kid throwing a ball at a wall for PE (which is on a totally different platform from music I found out today) without getting messages that lead to nowhere. WHAT IS HAPPENING.

In the first 7 days, my high school senior has only been able to fully attend first period ONCE due to the constant and daily outages and connectivity issues with this platform. As a 20-year veteran teacher who taught in-person and online (high school and college), this is the biggest joke of an LMS I have ever seen. How in any way, shape, or form this is an acceptable alternative to F2F or even quality/reliable virtual teaching and learning is beyond me. If my child wasn’t a senior, we would remove her from school. Please note: we moved to this county specifically for the school system. This is the best you could come up with in the 6 months you had??

The app is okay but the system that it’s connected through creates glitches that affect parents and their feelings toward the educational system. Even being required to use such apps is harmful to those with beliefs that state no use of technology, along with their children/family. I’ve noticed system improvements but not through the entire system.

I’m not sure if this app is going to be beneficial or not. It’s a week out from School starting and there is very little on the app that I don’t already get from the school’s webpage. In fact the school keeps referencing their webpage and parentvue on this app. There is nothing personalized at this point to make it valuable to me, as a parent.

As a communication tool this is OK but I still have to go into ParentVUE to see what assignments my children have. Was under the impression that all that is in ParentVUE would be visible in the CTLS Parent app. Ideally we’d have one app that incorporates all of both. Also, info on when assignments have been issued - and when they have been returned. That way we don’t first learn of them after they are overdue...

There is still a daily need for teachers to be able to post the Zoom link. Because CTLS still has many issues, The parents rely on emails from the teachers to send the homeroom Zoom links and the multitude of different Specials Zoom links. I want CTL to be a 1 stop shop: My 1st grader cannot go in and out of my email to get Zoom links, go in and out of Google Chrome for CTLS then go in and out of IE to get to Seesaw for homework. CTLS should house all of the systems needed.

All info is a duplicate of emails. If I didn’t have email it would be helpful. But everyone does...so I have to say, it is not very helpful. And I desperately hope what other reviewers are saying is not true. That 8 million dollars was spent on CTLS. The children could have used that much more than the parents for a communication platform. The “Remind” app is SO much more effective.

I work at a school and my children go to another. CTLS allows me to keep up with information being sent out from both schools. Can’t wait until additional features are released.

This idea was great but the design is flawed. There is too much information on this site and it is hard to distinguish the school from the county. This is not good since the county allows the principal to make decisions and there is no continuity across schools. If the information is out there it’s hard to find and as a parent looking for detail information I shouldn’t have to play where’s Waldo to find what I need. I expected better from Cobb County Schools.

I was told about an hour for the update Friday starting at 6:00pm. Saturday around 11:30 my child tried to do her assignments and they were not opening with a message that said corrupt file. A few minutes later she could open one. She had several that was due by Sunday. I’m beginning to believe that this app along with Cobb County “we” should probably start a class action suit. Remember we have a law no kid left behind.

Ignore the noise, the app provides additional information and communication in a season when I cannot have too much information about my kids education. Thank you

Teachers and the school principal don’t seem to get my email either from my email or the messages that I send through this system. I am disappointed in that. I am pleased that students were able to go back in person and masks are optional this year. Thanks

Too many different sources to find information. Their class schedule should be simply stated. I should not have to access 2 different apps AND the school website to try and figure out what her schedule is for classes. Absolutely ridiculous & frustrating. The one provided on LMMS website is very confusing. It should be simply stated per student.

I love how we are able to stay informed as I realized there will be errors along the way so we have to learn to adjust. Thankful to stay updated about my child’s safety and academic progress with his teachers.

It is unfortunate that Cobb county deliver these kind of solutions when they are not ready. The app is not up to the stand and not performing as expected with many errors. Any commercial organization do some testing & invest on R&D before publishing “it is ready”. Hope they follow better process in the future.

We just moved here from Europe and I have been impressed with the Cobb county schools, administration at the individual schools, and the roll out of CTLS. We are all embarking on the unknown and I am impressed with how they system is running as of now!

Need real info - from school! Where is a schedule? Where is a list of the multiple links children are supposed to find? How are children supposed to know how to cut and paste links? This is too difficult for children. Also have a senior working here who in 4 days hasn’t even been get online - reading emails from teachers. This is not appropriate education!

Both CTLS parent and CTLS Learn are horrible platforms. The county had 6 months to integrate off the shelf applications appropriate for each grade level, but instead chose to invest 20 million of our tax dollars on the pet project of the superintendent. Oh, we also spent 8 million dollars from the CARES act on this horrible platform. The most of the BOE and all of the executive leadership of CCSD should resign over this failed experiment. This is an inexcusable waste of taxpayer dollars.

On again off again!!! It seems as if when we’ve begun to learn CTLS, something happens or changes. Texts and emails are superfluous, and there are too many links from class to class. Parents and children are frustrated by these inconsistencies.

What is the point of this app other than to duplicate existing communication? I’ll revise my review when and if this changes as school starts. This cost us $8 million in CARES Act funds?

This was a good idea, but the app has been plagued by server issues, and usability issues over the first two weeks. Overall the county would have been better just using the existing Microsoft teams set up which has a much better server side support.

All I can see on this app is my sons name and grade. I already know that. There are no class assignments now here or on parentvue? No grades yet, so I don’t know about that. All I can see is a teacher sent a letter on here and to my email asking me to fill out the beginning of school forms. Pick an app and actually give parents some information on it please.

Teachers send emails through this system. You can’t just reply to the email because it will not go to the teacher. Instead, you have to start a whole new email and reference the email that has been sent through CTLS.

I see no additional value in this application as it basically just mimics my email in box for student communication. The parents do not see any additional detail in regards to grades, assignments, attendance, etc. I honestly question why Cobb County invested in this application.

Make one for students

I’m so confused between CTLS Parent, ParentVue and ParentSquare. Why do there have to be 3 apps with 3 different logins? I keep getting various texts to have me read an announcement. I click on the text link and it takes me to CTLS that says NO ANNOUNCEMENTS. What does it want from me??? Ugh.

Great to have all the communication in one spot vs having to hunt through mountains of email.

How do you maneuver new announcements on this CTLA app? My screen is stuck on the same message from JULY and doesn’t go to new messages from the school. It makes no sense not to combine all this data and sites. The app is not user friendly at all.

The only thing we’ve gotten are notices from the school & county which I’m already receiving in other ways. Not helpful at all in viewing assignments or notices from teachers. We still have to go to teacher blogs on the school website and use other sources to see class assignments.

For the app only- Not user friendly. Takes forever to update when posts are made. Only works half the time once it updates. Website is 10x worse. Can’t imagine how much money Cobb flushed down the drain paying for this.

CTLS is a pain. Too many things in too many places. Messages get lost. It’s not intuitive. Would prefer just receiving emails directly from teachers like before.

All it shows is the communication from the county or school, something that I get in email form. This program does not provide any other tangible info, like assignments. We are still forced to go to other sites and apps to see that.

Ctls is garbage its like you guys work with your head in your rear end. You guys care more about the presentation rather than the system. So the system is hacked and messes up our grades because YOU guys care abt the way it looks rather than it actually working well.

Everything is just so confusing with links and sites and just so much stuff. Don’t know how this site helps parents really at all. Still get emails as well.

Spends more time down that is does attempting to work. On par for CCSD, completely dysfunctional. Give out our tax dollars back and let us choose our best way to educate our children. Enough of this Junk.

Very easy to login and follow the steps. Even a kid can follow this steps. Great app. Thank you CCSD.

I love it, Very Helpful thanks

Teachers are not communicating or posting here. We have not received any response via this application. Assignments are not being posted here for parents. We can’t see what’s been turned in or graded.

I ‘ve been unable to log in since the beginning. Some days my password is invalid. Some days my ID is invalid. Some days even my name can’t be recognized. I’d like to be able to choose online or face to face but I’m stymied at every turn.

If I could leave no stars, I would. This program is no where near ready for deployment. It’s embarrassing to think this is what my child’s educators spent the summer developing, instead of an actual working plan.

It won’t work it’s shows the video but it will kick you and it won’t let my child access any sound

Too disorganized... doesn’t work well, and sometimes not at all, when using an iPad.

I do not understand not helpful doesnt work

CTLS is a joke, it didn’t work for my kids virtual learning. The school district had to resort to Zoom calls. Pfft, how the heck are you gonna learn on zoom calls. Seriously??

I get tired of having to go from one app to the other, log onto this, log onto that, is too much to keep up with!

The App is not very user friendly and there are too many glitches. Many applications don’t work especially with parentVue.