PowerSchool SIS

PowerSchool Helps Schools Stay Organized

Opmerkingen: PowerSchool Student Information System had been a great tool overall. Tech-inclined teachers will find ways to make it work for them and save time will special features. Other teachers will find the layout easy to navigate and use with just a little bit of training. They are also regularly pushing out new features, so that is nice to see as well.

Pluspunten:

PowerSchool is an easy to use system. I have used it for over 3 years, but I felt comfortable with it after just a few days. The things you will use it for every day as a teacher (attendance and lunch count) are right there on the front page and easy to use. I can enter my attendance and lunch counts in probably about 20 seconds. The grading part is also easy to use. You can fill in grades and comments for all students as a timesaver. The fill comment can even be used to add each students individual name...which is a nice feature.

Minpunten:

When the report cards print, they have a fairly basic set up. This might be something that is adjustable at the district level. I have seen other report cards look a little more professional- adding things like a school image.

Good but too much for us

Opmerkingen: It was good working with PowerSchool, but we switched to an easier format and one that we could alter to fit our needs.

Pluspunten:

Plenty of applications to use with our school.

Minpunten:

Too difficult to work for our small school. All the options just got in the way and caused confusion.

Least intuitive Student Information System I have used in 12 years of teaching

Opmerkingen: It is counter-intuitive. Please study other models before rolling out the next version.

Pluspunten:

I like that it updates the students every time I input a grade (after I hit "save"). That is motivational for students.

Minpunten:

Please note that the cons that exist here are features that exist in almost every other SIS that I have used in my experience and prevent me from using this efficiently. Not in order: 1) I cannot toggle between the first quarter, second quarter, and semester exam. The semester exam is not even there. 2) If I want to input the same grade for an assignment for all students, there isn't a code where I can fill down or copy a score from one student to the rest. 3) The assignments automatically default to percent-based, so if I put a 10 out of 10, it comes out as 10%, and I have to remember to select "points" instead of percent. 4) If multiple classes have the exact same assignment but a different point-amount or dates, I cannot change particular features of that assignment for that class, once the assignment is created. 5) There is no symbol that calculates as a 0 but is a notification for absentees. Instead, they see the 0 (even if I have the green absentee symbol next to it), and automatically think, "That's it." It demotivates students, even if I repeatedly remind them they can make it up if they were absent. Other programs use "Z" for this feature. 6) I cannot press tab between columns. 7) The bar on the right with the number pad, student information, etc., that appears when inputting grades, takes up too much room, especially if I am splitting my screen between PowerSchool and a spreadsheet. Those are the top cons, but there are more.

PowerSchool

Opmerkingen: We are on our second year, and it seems to be working well. The roll-over and reporting for state are handled very nicely.

Pluspunten:

This is a very user-friendly Student Information System for schools. The reporting features are great, and special education modules are better than most. They have a great content library as well.

Minpunten:

I did not like the training sessions, and the pricing for these. These are additional expenses, and these sessions are purchased as training hour bundles. They do not roll over each year if they are not used.

Student-based SIS, great usability, easy to learn, rigid yet pliable, modifiable.

Pluspunten:

PowerSchool SIS is a great student-based SIS. It is easy to use, and easy to modify to what you need it to be. I like that we are able to modify and customize pages, it has made it easy for us to streamline the product to use for re-enrollment, pre-registration, and keeping up-to-date on student information. It has allowed us to bridge the gap between when PowerSchool did not yet have partner products and today where it has plenty of partners and other tools available, however, due to the customization we are able to do without many of the paid additions. I like that the software was also, easily learnable. I took over the role as PS Admin from a true tech genius, and was able to learn the software within a year, and make it my own within two while also teaching and working IT. I only had to consult a small handful of times for issues that even left them scratching their head, which is very reassuring.

Minpunten:

While PowerSchool SIS is a great system, there are some areas that could use some help. There are plenty of times and locations where you will see the message "Cannot be undone." or "Submit only if you know what you are doing and it is absolutely necessary" or something to that effect, however, there are other areas where it is just as dangerous and nonreversible that lack any warning. We had a user delete three years worth of student grade records by hitting the return key in USM rather than hitting the button to modify. It went with the delete command, which is right next to modify (I would personally prefer them on opposite sides of the screen where I cannot personally mess that one up), but it also deleted without the checkbox to verify the delete command being checked. I also hate that as the scheduler (I do it all), I have to schedule twice essentially due to co-teaching, once to build the framework with the lead teacher in PowerScheduler, and again on the live-side to add co-teachers. Additionally, since this is a student-based SIS, there are some limitations for parents and families. There are a lot of times that we need to manually move data with families, the parent account setup, at least according to the parents, could be easier.