Online directory eases school community networking
By Grace Rauh, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area |
| FREMONT — Organizing a first-grader's birthday party is no easy task. |
| But when you have no way of contacting your children's friends, sending out invitations suddenly becomes more daunting than baking a birthday cake. |
| Such was the case for Mona Nanda. |
| When it came time to plan her child's sixth birthday party last year, Nanda, who works full time and doesn't have time to chat with parents in the school pickup line, sent her daughter to Mission San Jose Elementary School with a stack of sticky-notes to hand out to friends. |
| The school is one of many that does not publish a student directory. |
| Mona pulled off a party at Chuck E. Cheese's, but the absurdity of the situation struck her husband, Amit. Here they were, living in the information age, and the only way his wife could contact other parents at the school was by sticky-note. |
| "She had no alternative but to do something completely wild," he said. |
| It was from this experience, and the realization that their daughter's school was becoming an increasingly important part of the family's social life, that Amit and his former work colleague Sandra Murdock decided to launch SchoolParentNet, an online network for parents of schoolchildren. |
| The duo wanted to find a way to connect parents with children in the same classroom, grade, school and school district and allow those parents to do everything from recruit volunteers for an upcoming class party to find a tennis partner for a Saturday game. They had watched the success of online dating sites connecting single adults and figured there was no reason such a network couldn't "help in our parent world, too," Amit said. |
| SchoolParentNet.com was launched formally this fall to coincide with the start of school and, according to Amit, parents from 12 states representing about 150 schools already have registered on the Web site. |
| "So far, there hasn't been a medium for communicating with parents within the same class," said Prashanth Prahlad, a Mission San Jose Elementary School parent. "It's kind of like a way for parents to meet the other parents of these kids.... And to see, you know, if they can talk, not just about these parties, but about the progress the children are making, extracurricular activities." |
| Amit is hoping to tap into a nationwide network of parents who will recruit new members and post detailed profiles to give the Web site more depth than a paper directory. |
| The site also stands to benefit schools, he said, as parents who sign up the most members in a given period can win money for their school. Starting in early 2006, Amit says he hopes to give away $1,000 each week to schools. For more information, visit http://www.schoolparentnet.com. |
Staff writer Grace Rauh covers education for The Argus. She can be reached at (510) 353-7010 or e-mail grauh@angnewspapers.com.
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