A new school year means new beginnings. As students, we all expect to come back to school in August to receive new teachers, schedules and courses. But who knew this school year would bring about such a drastic change in the way we interact within our Marlborough community?

This year, Marlborough has transitioned to a new online system called Haiku Learning Management System (LMS). The main objective is for teachers and students to maintain a classroom website where they can connect and stay informed. But no matter what technology we adopt, our school cannot progress if we continue to rely on old ways.

For instance, many teachers still rely on the Portal to share classroom assignments and handouts. Meanwhile, other faculty members have converted to the new Haiku system. This leaves students bewildered and uneasy.

We as students are forced to check multiple sources of information for updates and class schedules. Each day, we frantically sign on to both the Haiku and Portal sites, searching for all things class related. We do not have the confidence that everything is contained within Haiku and fear that if we neglect to check both sites, we will miss that one critical assignment. Similarly, with the new Marlborough mailing system, students are restricted to their Marlborough Outlook accounts. Since email forwarding is prohibited, we’re forced to check two emails. This is all a difficult, stressful and tedious process… one that needs to be changed.
Don’t get us wrong- we have no problem with Haiku; however, we do believe that the transition could have been smoother. We wholeheartedly endorse Haiku but feel that standards need to be implemented, consolidating all class-related posts onto one site. Haiku cannot be used as an efficient means of communication unless all faculty members use it.