I honestly don’t think Bangor School Superintendent Robert “Sandy” Ervin likes it when his secretary tells him I’m on the line.

He swears that’s not true, but I suspect otherwise.

This week I called to talk to him about a Web-based computer program that dozens, if not hundreds, of schools are using across the state to keep better track of students’ schedules, grades, tardiness, attendance and disciplinary issues.

That seems like a good thing. Not a lot of room for controversy.

Still, the fine superintendent and I seemed to find loads of room for debate about the subject. I think I ended up annoying him a bit, but he probably wouldn’t admit it.

Bangor has been using the Web-based technology very successfully for several years. It helps teachers and administrators track all sorts of useful information on students and retrieve that information at the click of a button.

Here’s where things got touchy.

Many schools use the same technology to allow parents and students to retrieve the same information themselves from their home computers.

The Bangor school system doesn’t.

I first learned of this stunning technology when a high-strung friend of mine with a broken computer called me. Her daughter attends school in SAD 48. It was report card day, and my friend was a bit jittery about what to expect, so she called me.

She talked me through a few steps and provided me her secret password, and with that, I had her daughter’s grades on my screen. They were just fine, by the way. But I was amazed at the ability to do this.

A few weeks ago, another friend of mine attended orientation day for parents at Hampden Academy.

“This is great,” he said. “They give you a password, and you can go online and find out what your son or daughter’s homework assignments are for the day. You can find out if they have been late for school or if they’ve missed any classes. Their test scores are right there.”

My very first thought, of course, was: “I am so glad they didn’t have this when I was in high school.”

This is where Sandy Ervin and I began to disagree a bit. He feels that parents should use more traditional methods, such as talking with their kids and communicating with their teachers to make sure those kids are staying on task.

I certainly agree with that, but as parents, we all know that there are teachers who are better and more willing to communicate than others. He did agree with me on that, by the way.

There also are good kids who may simply need a bit of a nudge in the organization department. Perhaps they need to be reminded that a report is due on a certain date or that they apparently do have math homework tonight.

Sandy and I agree that kids and parents today are overscheduled and that technology cannot take the place of old-fashioned conversation. Trust me – if I could figure out a way to slow this whole world down a bit, I would.

I wish every parent could be at home when their child arrived home from school, and I wish every parent could trust that their child was forthright with how their school day went.

To me, being able to get that information off the computer only serves to better educate the parent for those conversations that Sandy knows that we all should have.

Renee Ordway can be reached at rdway@bangordailynews.net