DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION WARNS PARENTS OF

IMPOSTER FCAT PARENT NETWORK WEBSITE

TALLAHASSEE – The Florida Department of Education today alerted parents and school districts to the existence of at least one imposter website designed to appear as if it were the Department's official FCAT Parent Network, an online resource enabling parents to view their student's Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) scores.  Known as imposter domains, these websites attempt to capitalize on web address misspellings for commercial purposes.  Imposter domains typically use slight variations of official website addresses to redirect unsuspecting visitors to sites with advertisements and paid links.

In an effort to prevent parents from accidentally going to this imposter domain, the Department is sending out a letter warning of its existence to each school district for distribution to parents.  When accessing their child's results, parents are advised to check the spelling of the web address and ensure it is typed correctly. 

To access student FCAT results, parents should log on to www.fcatparentnetwork.com using the login and password provided by their school.  This secure site also includes detailed information on the meaning of the scores and provides resources to improve student performance in the future.

The Department tomorrow will release the 2007 FCAT Writing+ results, and will later this week make available to parents students' FCAT Writing+ scores via the FCAT Parent Network.

The benefits of the FCAT Parent Network include rapid report delivery, security of test data, clarity on the meaning of scores, tools to improve student performance and additional parent resources. This innovative reporting system is provided by the Department of Education as part of a continued effort to deliver educational resources that help parents, students, teachers and administrators meet achievement goals.

To learn more about the FCAT Parent Network, please visit www.fcatparentnetwork.com or http://fcat.fldoe.org/ .