Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Here's some of the new features for PowerTeacher coming in the Fall

Teachers,

PowerSchool is being upgraded during the summer to PowerTeacher 1.6. At a meeting in early May, one of the Pearson representatives shared with a user group some of the changes. Here are some things you may find interesting:

*You will be able to copy Multiple assignments into any class - at present you had to do them one at a time.

*Standards can also be entered in the gradebook and can now be seen by parents in the Quick Lookup (standards for grades 1-4 are the "Behaves appropriately, completes tasks on time, etc.) For kindergarten this means that parents will be able to see the measurements on line.

*The comment field will now have a 4000 character limit. Keep in mind though that our report cards will not accomodate that amount to be printed in the comment boxes.

As I learn more I will be more than happy to share :)

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Not enough space on Report Cards for comments?

Teachers,

The report cards we use in PowerSchool are set up in the same format as the hand written report cards. Just as the former paper copies, the space allotted for each quarter for comments is limited. Some teachers would like to take advantage of the ability to write more in depth for each child and would like more space. This seems to be more of a problem for middle level grades than lower grades since the student has many more teachers. More space on the report card is not possible, however, there is another avenue you can take.

Teacher comments can be entered through the "backpack." Although these comments do not appear on the report card it allows the teacher to write more verbiage than to share space with other teachers for the limited space on the report card. The report card comment can then read, "Please log onto your child's account and view the comments above your child's grades for (name of the subject) class."

Friday, March 27, 2009

Getting ready to Verify grades for Report Cards

Teachers,

The third marking period is upon us. Your school office will let you know the cut off date for adding grades for this marking period. Remember, if you are entering grades after Friday, March 27th you must make sure you use a date of March 27th or before in order for the grades to calculate in the third marking period.

Kindergarten grades and grades 1-8 checks and pluses are found in PowerTeacher, through the backpack in the homeroom section only (grades 1-4, subject level for grades 5-8.)

Grades must be VERIFIED to the school office prior to closing date. You can use either the Progress report in PowerTeacher under Reports, or the Final grade and verification report in Power Teacher. Either way, make sure that the grades are correct - changing them later is difficult and can not be done at the school level.

Questions? E-mail me.

Monday, March 09, 2009

Important!! Upgrade will occur on March 31st

Teachers,

An important upgrade is set for Tuesday, March 31st at 3 pm. This upgrade will fix a few issues that are important in all areas of PowerSchool. The ones that affect you the most are: Marking period dates are recorded correctly, the gradebook will now launch with JAVA version 6, and parents will now be able to SEE the checkmarks, late and missing icons!

PowerSchool should be down no more than a few hours. Please make sure you are not logged on and working in the program at this time or you will lose any information that was not saved correctly.

Thank you for your cooperation,
Adele

Monday, March 02, 2009

A Podcast on Completing Report Cards

I'm rerunning a podcast I did over a year ago on how to get ready for report cards. Click on the play button to listen.


reportcard.mp3