CTLS Parent Reviews

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.

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.

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??

Really?! After months of knowing kids would be online, THIS is what you guys came up with?? What is wrong with you?!? Since the middle of March you should have been thinking of something... THIS IS A PANDEMIC WE ARE TALKING ABOUT!! Kids are sitting in their room of their houses alone, (probably depressed), because of what Cobb county schools have done for this year. I’m just so glad I didn’t have to learn throughout these times but you guys are making our children cry because of the poor work you have done! My son is getting dumber by the week, day, and hour he is looking at his computer screen doing nothing. Everyone is. All your doing is hurting these kids lives... RUINING THEM. Because of you they can’t learn AND MIGHT NOT HAVE A FUTURE!! Thanks so much Cobb!! [sarcasm] Thanks to you my son could no longer live his life and have a further and that is for everyone parent and child out there dealing with this horrific plan from Cobb. I will stand up for my child, and every child’s education in this county to fight for better education and a better plan!!! Every parent, come with me and stand up for every child!!!!!!!

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!

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 CTLSParent along with Cobb County “we” should probably start a class action suit. Remember we have a law no kid left behind.

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.

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

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.

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 found a bug in CTLSParent 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.

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...

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

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.

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!

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

At first, I didn’t see the need for CTLSParent 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.

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.