The days of hiding that F on the science quiz or those skipped classes from Mom and Dad are about to end for a group of Alberta students.

Under a new initiative that is bound to worry many children, parents in the Parkland School Division, just west of Edmonton, will soon be able to use their home computers to check on their children's homework, attendance and marks with a simple mouse click.

So the "I don't have any homework" line won't work any more. Nor will doctoring that report card to change the D into a B.

"Parents can see what kind of day their child had -- a good day, difficulty at recess . . . difficulty finishing their assignments," superintendent Mary Lynne Campbell said. "This is a different way for parents to get a response from their children."

Administrators such as Ms. Campbell are turning to Internet portals so that parents, who are growing increasingly involved in school life, can keep tabs on their child's progress 24 hours a day.

But with parents constantly looking over their shoulders, it may be hard for young people to develop a sense of accountability. Instead, it shifts the onus of remembering schoolwork from the student to the parents, critics say.

"If you ask high-school kids about how they would feel about something like this, the majority of them will say, 'Hey, this violates my privacy,' " said Rob Tierney, dean of education at the University of British Columbia.

"They need to be part of the conversation."

At Parkland, the software, created by Edmonton-based StudentsAchieve, will reside on the board's server and be phased in over two years at 22 schools, starting this fall.

Teachers in nearly half those schools will learn to use the program to post marks, attendance and course assignments this September. It will slowly be rolled out to parents and students, providing them with a passcode.

The use of paper report cards will not be abandoned, but the new program will go a long way toward strengthening the relationship between home and school, Ms. Campbell said.

As technology creeps more and more into classrooms, keeping track of students' grades and homework by computer is just another tool for parents.

"Parents are paying good money for the kids to go the school. They want to know how they're doing," said Barry Hennick, a science teacher at the Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto.

This past school year, CHAT signed up with Edline, a Chicago-based company that provides software to schools so parents can access everything from homework to the school's lunch menu.

CHAT made the software available mainly to students last year. Mr. Hennick posted marks, homework and links to relevant Web sites for assignments. "The number of kids providing excuses for work not done really dropped to zero," he said.

The school plans to extend the allocation of passcodes to parents this fall.

Evan Singer, 17, opposes this plan, saying that it's an invasion of privacy, especially for high-school students who are mature enough to decide what they wish to share with their parents.

"Parents are informed of a child's progress regularly, and if a student is having problems, the parent will be informed by the teacher or the school," he said. "Sometimes a parent may perceive a child as underachieving, and access to each and every mark at any given time may only strengthen that perception."

But Paul Shaviv, director of education at CHAT, said that nothing would go on-line that the school would not expect students to tell their parents. CHAT will not rely solely on the software to reach parents, he said.

The software from Edline can cost a school between $2 to $3 (U.S.) a year per student.

At Parkland, Ms. Campbell said the program costs $125,000 (Canadian) to buy, plus about $38,000 to maintain every year.

But it's worth the cost, she said.

"It is an important next step for us in enhancing our accountability."

When asked what it will mean for students, Ms. Campbell said: "It depends on the student, I guess."