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PowerSchool Student Information System vs. Unique Learning System

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    PowerSchool SIS

    Score6.3 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    The PowerSchool Student Information System covers administrative needs, such as scheduling, attendance, reporting, data management, faculty management, emergency/medical and health management, registration, and more for K-12 schools and districts. It is easy to use and boasts an industry-leading gradebook, PowerTeacher Pro. Users enjoy a fully web-based SIS that is flexible, configurable, and scalable with real-time updates on any operating system, browser or device.N/A

    Unique Learning System

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AUnique Learning System (ULS) is a special education solution that supports students with disabilities from Pre-K through transition. It provides differentiated, standards-aligned lessons in ELA, math, science, social studies, and life skills with built-in assessments, progress tracking, and automated differentiation.N/A
    Pricing
    PowerSchool SISUnique Learning System
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    PowerSchool SISUnique Learning System
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    PowerSchool SISUnique Learning System
    Considered Both Products
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answer on this topic
    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    95%
    Would buy again
    18 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    299 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    188 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    89%
    Happy with the feature set
    17 Answers
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    292 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    9 Answers
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    97 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    92%
    Implementation went as expected
    12 Answers
    89%
    Implementation went as expected
    178 Answers
    Features
    PowerSchool SISUnique Learning System
    Student and Faculty Administration
    Comparison of Student and Faculty Administration features of PowerSchool Student Information System and Unique Learning System
    Feature
    PowerSchool Student Information System
    8.5
    3 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Unique Learning System
    -
    Ratings
    Integrations with 3rd-Party Education Technology9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Online Registration Management10.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    District Communications, such as messaging and alerting8.12 Ratings00 Ratings
    Roster Management9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform Customization7.73 Ratings00 Ratings
    Teacher Self-Service9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Student Data Security9.43 Ratings00 Ratings
    Community Support7.43 Ratings00 Ratings
    Class Scheduling9.43 Ratings00 Ratings
    State and National-level Reporting7.12 Ratings00 Ratings
    Compliance Support7.62 Ratings00 Ratings
    Teacher and Parent Mobile Application8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
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    PowerSchool SISUnique Learning System
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    Medium-sized Companies
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
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    Enterprises
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    User Ratings
    PowerSchool SISUnique Learning System
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (32 ratings)
    8.5
    (309 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.8
    (5 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.6
    (309 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.5
    (12 ratings)
    6.7
    (2 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.5
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.5
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    PowerSchool SISUnique Learning System
    Likelihood to Recommend
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    PowerSchool Student Information System is a cool software that can be highly recommended to anyone who is living in the educational management space. It is proven that this software can reduce your manual workload massively if you use it right. Plus it is really worth the price you pay. Especially if you are in the administrative field, this software will help you to minimize manual efforts put into student registrations, staffing recruitment, and main resource management processes.
    Incentivized
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    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    I have actually recommended it to another teacher in a different district for her autism program since she could level and pace it easily and also easily collect IEP data without stressing out her students with extra work. Unique Learning System is also a good program for our autism program because it is consistent with all core subjects, making is very routine based.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    • PowerSchool houses student or staff information that can be easily accessed by those teachers and administrators who need the information. This allows everyone to go to one place to access information.
    • Parents can view their child's grades at any time with their protected login on a parent portal. This allows teachers to keep parents informed and involved in their child's progress at school. When everyone works together it increases our students' chance for success.
    • PowerSchool offers videos to train new users. When we have new employees, the videos can be accessed at any time the employee needs as opposed to them waiting for someone to help them.
    Incentivized
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    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    • Data tracking and progress reports - Unique Learning System's Polaris feature is a user-friendly, simple way to track and monitor progress towards learners IEP goals. When creating a roadmap that follows a learner's IEP, you input data such as learning profiles and benchmark assessments and rubrics that then produce goal suggestions. You can craft your own goal, use a suggested goal, or choose a goal from the goal library. It gives you a great idea of what goals to target based on learner needs and progress. Entering data is super easy, just a date and a data point, and a graph generates for you. From there, it will show the data trend and flag it for you when it's at risk. It is also easy to add an intervention. Quarterly, I use the progress report feature to generate a report that provides me with the graphs that I use to put into IEP writer.
    • Curriculum pacing - My school utilizes Unique Learning System for our daily instruction. Unique Learning System provides pacing guides with what to teach and when. Everything is standards aligned and all of the lesson plans have ways that you can differentiate already built into the plans as well as an easy to use, structured/routine based set up that makes daily lessons predictable for learners to increase engagement.
    • N2Y - My learners love News To You! This provides children with access to informational text. We use it as a "fun Friday" read every week. We read the article in class, watch videos, answer questions, and typically do an activity to go along with it. The kids look forward to it every week, and also enjoy the Joey's Locker games that go along with the articles. They have a new feature to be able to assign activities that go along with the article which is really nice because I assign them as supplemental activities to go along with what we are learning about in class!
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    • Does not consistently communicate with related software such as Illuminate for Special Education Students.
    • Drop down menus frequently refresh as data is entered which slows down the user's ability to enter information.
    • Icons are sometimes unclear and not easily understandable. Word labels for some items might be more effective.
    Incentivized
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    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    • Unique Learning System's materials in the science and social studies areas aren't "fluffy" as other areas, but they are continuously adding materials
    • The layout of the website isn't the most user friendly, but most teachers are able to navigate easily after an initial training
    • The administrator side of things isn't super straightforward, reports can be confusing to find/run, but the one on one meetings always provide clarity.
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    Likelihood to Renew
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    We would be starting over at square one if we did not continue our PowerSchool subscription. We do not have a program in a place that would take its place.
    Incentivized
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    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    I appreciate all the various resources that Unique Learning System has to offer. However, due to my limited interaction with other resources similar to Unique Learning System I do not know enough to compare it against other programs. I also am not a person in charge of renewing Unique Learning System for my organization.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    Great features, but it can feel very cumbersome at times
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    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    There is a lot of content in Unique Learning System. It can sometimes be time consuming to navigate through everything. I appreciate the depth and breadth of the resources, but it can also be tough to use when I need a worksheet or packet for my students. The use of Unique Learning System on the computer is great, but my students seem to learn best when they have a pen and paper in front of them.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    errors will show up
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    there have been few issues with login or glitches
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    Support Rating
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    Overall, I have not had to use support for PowerSchool Student Information System because our school district gives us training in each area in which we will be utilizing PowerSchool Student Information System. In terms of in-user support, I feel that there is mild to moderate user support that is built into PowerSchool SIS.
    Incentivized
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    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    The individuals helping have always been great. The response to requests for changes in functionality or reporting less so.
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    In-Person Training
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    it was all over the place hard to follow along
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    Implementation Rating
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    good product
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    I have heard good things for Infinite Campus and Skyward. I would [evaluate] each of them and see what fits your needs. Each has their strengths and weaknesses and so picking the right one for your needs is important. PowerSchool [Student Information System] does have some great features, but lacks some fundamental reports and functions to make it top notch.
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    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    We viewed Encore by TeachTown. The product seemed to be a notch above Unique Learning System and included workbooks and other books but was very expensive. The downfalls of Encore was that it did not include the Profile Assessments like Unique Learning System and also the monthly checkpoints which are very valuable.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    todays weather would not load sometimes
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    • It has created shortcuts for all staff members, saving us time.
    • In creating shortcuts and combining many different systems into one, it is saving our school money.
    • It has created a safety net for teachers because grades and student information is stored electronically, which means teachers not having to worry about losing or misplacing their grade books.
    Incentivized
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    Everway (formerly Texthelp and n2y)
    • Ease of planning is #1. I am able to plan an entire lesson or a week's worth of lessons during my 30-minute planning time.
    • Data that is collected for IEPs is so valuable and reports are parent-friendly.
    • Students are able to work on the alternative path toward a diploma because this curriculm is covering all of the standards they need to see in order to earn their diploma.
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    ScreenShots

    PowerSchool SIS Screenshots

    Screenshot of Student attendanceScreenshot of Standards-based gradingScreenshot of At-risk dashboardScreenshot of Parent view of student schedule

    Unique Learning System Screenshots

    Screenshot of assessments and progress monitoringScreenshot of lesson planningScreenshot of research based contentScreenshot of Science of Reading coursesScreenshot of a system overviewScreenshot of teacher reference materials