Most Kanawha County parents aren't able to fill out the local public school system's annually required "first-day packet" forms online after all.
Zack Hanshaw, the Kanawha school system's webmaster, said at a county Board of Education meeting in June that he hoped parents would be able to do so starting this school year. Parents were to be able to fill out the forms, such as emergency contact forms, by visiting the system's website at kcs.kana.k12.wv.us.
Hanshaw said the system should've been able to save parents time by automatically filling out on other forms the information they manually input on one form.
"Due to a design flaw in a reporting feature, the 'first-day packet' online forms that were set to go live this year will no longer happen," the school system's website now states. "There will not be enough time to get the flaw fixed for the roll-out to traditional schools this August. This is not a security issue.
"The data that parents have submitted for the Year-Round Schools is safe and secure. Those who have already filled out online forms for the Year-Round schools won't need to fill out the paper forms, we are sending a copy of the submitted forms to the two schools. We are analyzing the system, making changes, and will introduce it next year."
Kanawha's only two year-round schools are Mary C. Snow West Side and Piedmont elementaries. Students at those schools started classes before the general start of classes countywide this week.
When asked why the school system didn't allow parents of kids at the other schools to also fill out the forms online, using the same workaround employed for Mary C. Snow and Piedmont, school system Communications Director Briana Warner said "the forms had to be manually created, printed off and sent to the schools and this wasn't feasible for 27,000 students."
Hanshaw said in June that the initial plan was to allow parents to fill out the forms required system-wide online, and sometime after this school year allow parents to also fill out school-specific forms in this manner.
He said he hoped to eventually carry over this auto-fill information from year to year and - if parents have multiple school-age children - from student to student.
"I'm disappointed it didn't launch, especially after I might have made a Facebook announcement on my page," said school board member Ric Cavender, who said he pushed for the online process alongside fellow board member Ryan White.
"I have full faith that the staff will be able to rectify the issue and get it ready for next year," Cavender said.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.