Frontline Professional Growth vs. PowerSchool Unified Classroom

This is perfect for the district looking to convert older physical forms to digital copies, and mitigate the tracking of forms from desk to desk. Frontline will do it all digitally. Those in the approval process can approve or deny, or even ask for more information, which sends the form back to the user who submitted it. This is also good for those looking for a way to manage professional development in their district and all that comes with it, including tracking workshops, awarding hours, etc. Most districts use Frontline programs somewhere, so this is another piece to that. However, this is cost-heavy.

Incentivized

In the classroom it is very well suited. For classroom teachers, and for school systems in general. It is appropriate in this capacity because it creates a streamlined sense of communication for all stakeholders: teachers, parents, students, and administration. It makes parent meetings very easy, it makes interventions for students easy, and it helps administration keep tabs on overall progress

Incentivized

• Frontline Professional Growth is set up to organize and document all aspects of a teacher's evaluation. Artifacts are archived and can be used in multiple areas.
• SGOs, observations, PDPs, and documentation logs can all be shared between the staff member and the administration.
• The forms are easy to fill out, can be saved as drafts in progress, and can be referred to from year to year.
• The Professional Development Workshop section offers a calendar of workshops in catalog format as well as calendar format.
• As a workshop presenter, enrollment tools are easy to use and offer multiple ways to access your roster.
• As a workshop participant, workshops are listed as in progress and completed. Hours are tabulated and saved each year.

Incentivized

• Hand in/Hand Out Assignments
• Standards Based Assessments

Incentivized

• Confusing sign-on processes.
• AESOP (absence management) is not integrated with Professional Growth as advertised.

Incentivized

• The user interface is a little blocky and not entirely user-friendly.
• It does take more training than we'd like with new staff.

Incentivized

Overall, Frontline Professional Growth manages observations, SGOs, documentation logs, and Professional Development Plans. In addition to these evaluation pieces, it allows our district to manage our Professional Development Workshops (in-house), Professional Development requests (for out-of-district), and many online request forms. The only real negative is that some of the menus are a bit cumbersome, and it takes several steps to get around the system.

Incentivized

They are very responsive to the issues that we have and follow through with their assistance. Having a live assist that is available when our teachers need it is essential too. They also seem to listen to suggestions on making improvements and have been transparent with us when renovations are done.

Incentivized

I have only used this and GCN trainings. I think it helps having more choices that hold value to your work day.

Incentivized

I have used markbook and gradebook. Each system had good features that were slightly different but the fact that this one is web based and accessible makes it the best of the 3 I have used. The learning curve to using the program is similar to the other 2 and overall has allowed me to save time reporting to students and parents.

Incentivized

• We have used a lot less paper over the past few years which leads to cost savings.
• The time it takes to submit a form and get approval has sped up since this is all digital.
• The time it takes to track and award professional development hours has sped up.

Incentivized

• Positive impact- i don't know how much it costs but every teacher spends probably 1-4 hours on powerschool every week but it streamlines communication

Incentivized