A Message for Parents About Kids and School : Education: Voice mail tells Simi Valley families what students are learning in class and what they should be doing at home.

It’s not that Karen M. Smith doesn’t trust her two elementary-school-age sons when it comes to schoolwork. She just doesn’t have to any more.

Since Crestview School became one of three Simi Valley schools in the Homework Helper pilot program, Smith checks a voice-mail recording to learn what daily assignments her first- and second-graders are supposed to be doing.

“It’s great when my son comes home and says, ‘Mom, I don’t have any homework today,’ ” Smith said. “I just call up and say, ‘What about this?’ And he says, ‘Oh, that’s right.’ ”

Parents say they appreciate the school’s foray into the technology because they can intervene before a child gets behind without having to bother the teacher every day, Crestview Principal Ronda Oster said.

“I think we’re meeting the needs of society in ways we couldn’t otherwise,” Oster said. “It is the age of technology.”

Automatic voice message systems are helping parents get involved in their children’s education at a scattering of schools in Ventura County, county Supt. Charles Weis said.

“The more a parent gets involved in a child’s education, the higher the achievement,” Weis said. “It’s a very simple equation.”

In January, Simi Valley school officials plan to survey parents, students and teachers at the three test sites--Crestview, Justin School and Sinaloa Junior High--to see whether the program should be expanded districtwide.

The American Message Centers system works like an answering machine. When parents call in, they push the teacher’s extension to hear a recorded message about what children are learning in class and what they should be doing at home.

The technology is especially helpful for parents of junior high students, who have multiple teachers and a heavier workload, Sinaloa Principal Pat Dews said.

“This is a way for parents to have ongoing contact with the school without having to have six different teachers trying to return phone calls,” Dews said.

In the Ojai Unified district, where voice mail has been used at Matilija Junior High for four years, parent response has been overwhelming, Principal James Berube said.

The system logged more than 90,000 calls in the last school year, compared to about 30,000 in its first year of operation, Berube said.

Without the extra effort to draw parents in, Berube said, “junior high seems to be the age where there’s less and less communication between the home and school.”

Not surprisingly, some children prefer the old approach to teacher-parent communication. Crestview sixth-grader Mark Garcia doesn’t like the homework helper system because, he said, “I get in trouble too much.

“I think it’s good for the parents, but not for us.”

Teacher Judy Pfeil believes that some of her students have been helped by having their parents check up on their homework.

“The parents have told me they see a lot of value in it, and I agree,” Pfeil said.

Simi Valley officials spend $50 per month on the service at each of the two elementary schools, and $75 monthly at the junior high, said Lowell Schultze, district director of information services.

In addition to teacher messages, parents can call in for school lunch menus, activities and other general announcements seven days a week, 24 hours a day. That frees up the office secretary’s time for other work, officials said.

A survey taken after the pilot program’s first school year finished in the spring showed that more than 85% of parents at two of the schools wanted the service continued.

One of the three schools originally in the program, Sycamore, dropped out because teachers did not have phones in their rooms, Schultze said. That elementary school was replaced by Justin, which does have classroom phones, he said.

The district is installing classroom phones in phases with the goal of having one in every room eventually, Schultze said.