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PowerSchool SIS

PowerSchool SIS

Overview

What is PowerSchool SIS?

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…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

PowerSchool Student Information System has been widely praised by users for its ease of use and intuitive interface. Teachers, …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Product Demos

Demo showing PowerSchool Tuition Plugin

YouTube
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Product Details

What is PowerSchool SIS?

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.

PowerSchool SIS Screenshots

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

PowerSchool SIS Videos

PowerSchool delivers innovative tools for the digital classroom
Customer testimonials
Customer testimonials

PowerSchool SIS Competitors

PowerSchool SIS Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Mobile Web
Supported LanguagesArabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Greek, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese

Frequently Asked Questions

Infinite Campus are common alternatives for PowerSchool SIS.

Reviewers rate Student Data Security and Class Scheduling highest, with a score of 9.4.

The most common users of PowerSchool SIS are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).

PowerSchool SIS Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)30%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)70%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)0%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(70)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

PowerSchool Student Information System has been widely praised by users for its ease of use and intuitive interface. Teachers, administrators, students, and parents have found the program to be relatively easy to learn and navigate. With PowerSchool, users can access attendance records, record grades, create progress reports and report cards, enter and view demographics, and create seating arrangements. Additionally, teachers can easily enter assignments into the grade book and communicate due dates and assignment expectations to students and parents. The program also serves as a centralized location for student management and information storage, allowing for unified student histories and easy transfers between schools within a district or county. PowerSchool integrates seamlessly with other educational systems, enabling the sharing of data and account management. Overall, PowerSchool Student Information System streamlines administrative tasks, improves communication between all stakeholders, and enhances the overall management of student information.

Customizability: Users have praised PowerSchool Student Information System for its highly customizable nature, with multiple reviewers stating that they can create their own fields and tables to tailor the system to their specific needs. This flexibility allows them to efficiently manage and track student information in a way that aligns with their unique requirements.

Integration capabilities: Several users have expressed appreciation for PowerSchool's extensive list of partners, highlighting that it simplifies the process of managing student data across multiple platforms. Reviewers have mentioned that if users already use another system for student data, chances are high that it can integrate seamlessly with PowerSchool. This integration capability enhances efficiency and provides a seamless experience for users.

Strong support system: Multiple reviewers have commended PowerSchool's strong support system, emphasizing the quick response time from customer support. They mentioned rarely being put on hold when calling support and finding reliable assistance through active user forums. The responsive customer support offered by PowerSchool ensures that users receive timely help when needed, enhancing their overall experience with the software.

Lack of Intuitiveness: Several users have found PowerSchool to be unintuitive, making it difficult for them to navigate and find the features they need. Some reviewers mentioned that certain functions require programming knowledge, which can be a barrier for administrators who are not familiar with coding.

Slow Performance: Reviewers have reported slow page loads and sluggish performance when managing student data in PowerSchool. This issue has been mentioned by multiple users, indicating that it is a common concern. The slow speed can hamper productivity and frustrate users trying to complete tasks efficiently.

Limited Integration and External Access: Users have expressed frustration with the limited integration options available in PowerSchool. Some reviewers have specifically mentioned difficulty in integrating external platforms or accessing the database for external integrations. This lack of flexibility restricts users from seamlessly incorporating other tools or systems into their workflow, hindering efficiency and collaboration efforts.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 32)
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Sachi Subaran | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am currently employed as an administrative support manager at a local educational firm. During the time of my employment, the major problem our management had was to find a solution for proper data and information integration between the company, students, parents, and the teachers. This problem got us to investigate many learning management software but an LMS couldn't offer what we were looking for. This is when we were introduced to Power School Student Information System which seemed to be a pretty cool problem solver at that time as it offered us the ability to simplify student registrations online via web forms which happened to be an amazing stress reliever for the company.
  • Admissions management.
  • Proper student/parent documentation management.
  • Payment process management.
  • Social media integration of the educational institute could be added.
  • Website of the educational institute could be integrated.
  • A main dashboard with student statistics could be added.
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.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use PowerSchool Student Information System everyday in the morning for checking attendance, for synching grades from Schoology, for monitoring students' grades quarterly and throughout the school year in all subjects, log entries, login details , demographics and medical alert. PowerSchool SIS resolves issues in grading student's works and daily attendance.
  • keeping and recording grades
  • checking attendance
  • keeping students' academic records
  • keeping student's private information
  • PowerSchool Student Information System is better if it has the capacity of sending emails to parents and students
  • PowerSchool Student Information System is better if it has the capacity of sending alerts to parents if student is late or tardy or absent in class
For five years with PowerSchool Student Information System, it has effective functionalities that have helped both teachers and parents in keeping track of students academic performance, and attendance; generating learning data for planning and preparation; generating attendance report and report card; keeping students academic, medical and other confidential information; and very minimal downtime.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Power School to manage our student information, and student enrollment, schedule classes, give grades and report cards and communicate grades to parents and guardians. It is our go-to place for student management and a place to store information. We use Power School throughout our county in all of the schools.
  • Scheduling students.
  • Grades
  • Integration with other products.
  • Scheduling students could use a more streamlined approach.
  • Learning how to use PowerSchool can seem intimidating at first.
  • Some of the selections in the program are small and hard to read or see.
PowerSchool is great for schools to keep track of student information, schedules, and grades. It integrates with other programs to make setting up classes easier and faster. PowerSchool gives teachers a singular place to find information or input students' grades. It also has an app for parents or guardians to use to check their student's grades which is very useful.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool SIS is the heart of the school district and is the master of the student data. It is used by everyone from administration to the classroom teacher. It handles registration, class schedules, attendance, grades, incident management and many more parts of the school ecosystem.
  • Accurate student data repository
  • easy to use teacher portal and gradebook
  • Parent portal access to grades and alerts
  • Access to the DB for external integrations
  • Lengthy product suggestion implementation
  • Downtime support
It is great for the E-12 school system management. Small and large schools can all benefit from this SIS.

It would not be the best for college level schools.
Spencer Cook | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PowerSchool [Student Information System] to do grades and attendance. PowerSchool has acquired many different companies and has expanded their offerings to out price themselves for many small districts. PowerSchool is a strong leader in the SIS world, and teachers like using it. Administrators like it a little less than teachers, and our IT staff have a hard time with it, (teachers win) We have been with PowerSchool since 2000 and have seen it grow in to what it is today. They have over promised and under delivered student data added cost by creating more addons to which I would expect to be part of the core function. PowerSchool is customizable if you have the skills to do so and they are finally getting past some of the limitations of the databases it was on 20 years ago, I feel like they have put more effort in new addons and frills instead of improving and fixing the core product. They have used the money they get for maintenance to build other products instead of maintain the product we are paying for. It works well for teachers and students, and so we keep with them, but I feel they have much to improve on for me to be satisficed with their service and product.
  • Student Grades
  • Teacher Gradebook
  • Parent Portal
  • Course management
  • Attendance
  • State Reports
  • Student Data Management
  • Speed of Page loads are long
  • Analysis of student information
  • Contacts
PowerSchool [Student Information System] is a solid program for teacher and students to track attendance and has a good gradebook if you use no other programs, it is not a good player with other systems and is hard to get data out of to may data driven decisions. PowerSchool does offer API and integration with some programs but you only can have read-only access to the database so if you need to write something you have to use their interface.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool is used at our school by the entire organization. The teachers use it in the classroom for daily attendance, as the grading system and for classroom reports. The secretarial staff and guidance counselors use PowerSchool to track and report attendance, student personal information for grades and transcripts. PowerSchool addresses a one stop shopping learning management system. All the information that is needed can be located in one place and is able to do many different things by various people. The same information that is needed by teachers, administrators or counselors can be all accessed from the same place.
  • Easy grading capabilities
  • Attendance taking capabilities
  • Reports
  • More varieties of reporting
PowerSchool is a great resource for teachers who need a medium for their grading system. Grades can be easily entered and calculated. More varieties or ability to manipulate reporting would be a helpful addition.
March 16, 2021

Useful but needs work

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The system has a great deal of potential but is not consistent when communicating with other management software. It is relatively easy to learn and use. It calculates final grades and allows for specific weighting on different assignments. Sometimes the icons are not clearly indicative of the purpose of the links. It needs work but, overall, the program serves the purpose for which it is intended.
  • Allows for weighting of assignments.
  • Logging discipline notes that follow the student from grade to grade.
  • Calculates grades accurately.
  • 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.
PowerSchool offers an app for parents that allows them to easily check their child's grades and/or assignments. Frequently demographic data that is updated in Powerschool does not transfer to other software as is expected. Viewing student scoresheets is handy when entering many grades at once.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool Student Information System is being used by our entire school district to manage student registration, classroom rosters, grading, reporting, communications, and more. This system integrates with a variety of other educational systems that we use for academic needs. Rosters from PowerSchool Student Information System are shared seamlessly with other platforms, allowing for smooth account management of all systems. We currently use PowerSchool Student Information System with Google, Canvas (our learning management system), Discovery Education, and Clever.
  • What I like best about PowerSchool Student Information System is that you can use it as a very basic level (rosters, attendance, grades) or go to very deep levels of integration with other PowerSchool systems (registration, human resources, special education).
  • The PowerSchool Student Information System support system is strong among current users of the product. There is a vibrant community of end users who are willing to help other users.
  • Resources for self learning are abundant in the PowerSchool Student Information System Community site.
  • What I don't like is that it sometimes too complex for the typical user.
  • Secretaries live in PowerSchool Student Information System as part of their duties. Some of the knowledge necessary to get the most out of PowerSchool Student Information System requires some level of programming knowledge, which is beyond most secretaries' skill sets.
  • As PowerSchool continues to purchase other platforms to expand their offerings, it is difficult to stay up to speed on all of the trainings.
  • Bigger is not always better. Just because you can expand and offer features doesn't mean you should.
The PowerSchool Student Information System registration system makes it easy for our parents to enroll their children in our district. Once they are enrolled, PowerSchool Student Information System gives parents one location to keep an eye on their child's academic progress throughout their school career.

Because we have mandated reporting for education, PowerSchool Student Information System does a fairly good job of meeting our state reporting needs. I applaud them for that, as that requires their teams to be familiar with the requirements of all states (and countries, as they are used worldwide).

PowerSchool Student Information System has done some work to improve critical logs for reporting purposes. However, we often find we have to make additional investments with third-party providers as their plug-ins provide better functionality.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use the PowerSchool Student Information System to collect student demographic data and apply grades and comments to families.
  • PowerSchool Student Information System does a great job of organizing information.
  • PowerSchool Student Information System has smooth grading processes.
  • It is not intuitive to know all the shortcuts and system tools.
  • Training takes multiple days to get comfortable.
PowerSchool Student Information System is well designed for putting together a large group of students and family information for teachers to access for communication. It's also well suited for staff to apply grades and comments.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool SIS is being used by our entire organization. It addresses many issues for us, as it allows us to do attendance, track grades and leave comments for report cards. It also allows us to have all our information in one place, like parent information, where they live and what their IEP or 504s are.
  • It allows me to find all my students information in one place.
  • It calculates all my grades for me and weights it so I do not have to do extra work.
  • Sometimes I struggle to find the correct classes because I am not able to change the names that my school put in.
  • I sometimes cannot easily locate information I am trying to find.
It is very appropriate for public schools who are trying to do everyday things like attendance and grades. It is not well suited for private schools where students are checking in and out during the day, etc.
Whitney Garnai, M. Ed. | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool is being used by my organization as a full-roll-out Student Information System portal. Not only can staff track attendance, grades, etc., but also parents can login to their Parent View of Power School and then can access their student's grades, attendance, and notifications there. I find power school very user friendly and enjoy using it over Schoolology.
  • Grade Book
  • Attendance
  • IEP Integration
  • Benchmark Score Integration
I feel that PowerSchool Student Information System is well suited for the following settings:
- elementary schools
- middle schools
- high schools
- small community colleges
- private schools

On the other hand, I do not feel that PowerSchool Student Information System is well suited for universities or large community colleges because of their sheer size. I have seen PowerSchool SIS used with a student population of >500, but not more than 500 students.
December 20, 2019

PowerSchool SIS Review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool is used by the whole company as our SIS program.
  • Enrollment
  • Grades
  • Grading could be easier.
I think PowerSchool works really well as an SIS system and we utilize the information for other systems.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool's SIS is the way we keep track of all the information for every student in the district. It is an easy program to manage, which is key for us. We also use other PowerSchool tools and having the SIS as the backbone allows all those programs to work really well. It does exactly what it's supposed to do, which is to manage student information.
  • Easy to move students around.
  • Easy to update student information when changes happen.
  • Teacher search can be difficult.
  • Data can be lost when teachers are shuffled.
PowerSchool's Student Information System is well suited for K-12 School districts as a solution for collecting, organizing and using student information. You can assign those students to a teacher's classroom, that teacher then has access to the important student information they need to monitor their classroom, connect with parents and keep their student information organized. It works well with other PowerSchool products as a complete K12 solution.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool Student Information System is being used by my entire school system to keep track of student demographics, scheduling, grades, and special education IEP files. By having all this information in one place, our record-keeping is effectively streamlined.
  • Scheduling is easy.
  • The gradebook is convenient and easy to use.
  • Sometimes setting up the gradebook can be tricky.
My favorite feature of PowerSchool is the Special Education record-keeping system. Information from the previous IEP can be copied. It is easy to input text. Drop-down menus assist in writing the IEP.
Meg Inscoe | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Floyd County School System in Rome, GA uses PowerSchool to take attendance, see birthdays, rosters, input grades and take lunch orders in the cafeteria. It is incredibly user intuitive and only takes my fellow teachers and me a few minutes to put in grades. At my old school, we used another much more complicated and difficult system. PowerSchool has made my life as a teacher so much easier.
  • Ease of Use: the menu is very straight forward and easy to navigate through.
  • Mobile site/App: I appreciate that there’s a mobile version of the site as well as the app so I can input grades from my smartphone on the go.
  • When going to the GA LDS site for our TKES performance review, we don’t get an email like we used to (when the system was not through PowerSchool) when our administrator fills out a document we need to complete.
  • I wish it were linked to my email and reminders for inputting grades could be set up on a certain day each month to send me an email reminding of when they’re due.
I think it’s a great platform for taking attendance, doing grades on either a P/F scale or on a 0-100 level. Our cafeteria employees love how easy it is for the kids to type in their lunch number and it registers on the system. Attendance is easily calculated. The system updates frequently to keep our rosters current. I can’t think of where it wouldn’t be needed in my school setting, at least.
Terica Bergan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PowerSchool as the master source for all student data. We also use it for managing state reporting data. We have found that it is very customizable and can be tailored to house the data we need. We have 2 school districts, and it is used by both. It allows us to keep all data in a single location to best manage the quality of our data. Importing and exporting data and automating those processes has been invaluable, as we have connected PowerSchool to our state testing system, therefore our roster within other systems is accurate, even when a new student is enrolled.
  • PowerSchool SIS has made reporting much easier. The ability for us to have instant reports for our administrator is very important, but the ability to pull the raw data and customize our own reports is crucial.
  • Tracking attendance is very important as we have truancy issues in our district and often have to provide documentation for court. It is very easy to track, print reports and customize our attendance codes.
  • The good is that PowerSchool is easy to use, the ugly is that you will need a dedicated person if you ever want to do a lot of customizations. So someone with a basic technical knowledge of relational databases is key to getting your money's worth out of PowerSchool. Frequently we need additional reports not already offered in PowerSchool, so we have someone that is familiar with sql that can create them inside of PowerSchool.
  • The built-in report card module for standards based report cards has always been my biggest disappointment. It's not that it's not there, it's just that you need someone with a programming mentality to be able to make a nice clean report. And changes are tedious and time-consuming to make.
PowerSchool Student Information System is flexible and customizable enough to facilitate districts of any size. It works out of the box, but can be heavily customized to fit the needs of individual customers. It also has externally available data connections so even if there is something you can't figure out how to do in the system, a simple data export or SQL query can make all the difference. Because we have many non-traditional schools in our district, virtual and alternative ed, we need PowerSchool to keep our state data clean and organized. It is constantly updated when our state makes changes to the rules. However I don't think it would be cost-effective for a district that has fewer than 1,000 students.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our school district utilizes PowerSchool throughout the district. It is our primary data hub for all student information including demographics, grades, attendance, and discipline. Every department in the school uses PowerSchool including, teachers, students, administrators, business office, and nurses.

PowerSchool addresses all of our student data needs. We have to collect and manage an enormous amount of student data and PowerSchool offers the ability to handle all of our student data needs.
  • Manage demographic data to help us manage constantly changing state reporting requirements.
  • Provide an excellent Gradebook for teachers that provides instant sync of grades to both the PowerSchool database and parent apps.
  • At this time I wish PowerSchool would do a better job in attendance tracking. The current system works without errors, but can be cumbersome with the amount of data available.
  • Uploading standardized test scores is also cumbersome. It can be done but takes some time to complete, and we had to create custom screens for people to be able to utilize that data effectively.
I honestly think PowerSchool is the best Student Information System available. It also may be the most expensive, but the flexibility it provides with worth every penny. Every other SIS that I have used does not allow for in-house customizations. You usually can get the SIS to build custom pages for you, but at a cost. PowerSchool allows the admin user to create custom pages on the fly without extra cost. This ability has allowed for the creation and growth of a huge network of users making unique and shareable customizations all over the country. If I can't figure out how to build something, I know I can find another user who already has.
Ai Ashe | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool Student Information is used across the entire division to manage student records and grades. It contains student information ranging from demographics to classes they are taking, teachers, grades, etc. It is also used by teachers to print a variety of reports ranging from rosters to individual student reports and attendance.
  • A wonderful student grade management tool. Easy interface to navigate. Used to add assignments, grade assignments, and categories and percentages.
  • Can print detailed reports with the option to select features to print.
  • Able to review a student's schedule, classes, grades in other classes, teacher's name and student demographics.
  • When creating assignments sometimes a feature is blocked by a pop-up window.
  • Would like to be able to print a student's overall attendance record for management.
PowerSchool is well suited for the educational system to manage student information, grades, and progress. Our PowerSchool information system contains student data from the time they entered our school system. It also contains data on student accommodations and parent contacts. The interface is user-friendly and easy to navigate. You can change the display size to suit your needs.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our school district uses PowerSchool as our primary student information system (SIS). Teachers access it daily to report grades. Parents access it regularly to check grades. The administration uses it to record all attendance. Students access it not only to verify assignments but also to select classes when balloting happens. We connect to PowerSchool through our learning management software (LMS), our mobile platforms, as well as traditional desktops.
  • The mobile app for students and parents is user-friendly and always up to date.
  • Information for master scheduling is well done and of vital importance.
  • Custom reports and settings are accessible.
  • There is a need for a mobile app for the administration to easily view information while away from their desks.
  • It would be nice if it had a more robust data warehouse for assessment data.
If districts are looking for an SIS solution that is robust and adaptable to their needs, I would recommend PowerSchool. There is a wealth of user-based groups to help find a solution to any unique solution you are looking for.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have a school district of 40,000+ and our entire state uses PowerSchool as the SIS. It is able to organize the student data in such a way that we are able to report on our student data as a whole or at individual schools.
  • It organizes your student data for you and allows you to let others (teachers and parents) access the data they need access to daily.
  • It allows Administration to control the scheduling, discipline, and administration of the data behind the scenes.
  • The Oracle backend is easy to query and stable.
  • It allows for too much customization.
  • The mobile app causes large districts problems.
  • They cater to small districts.
Any district or school can benefit from it. I am not sure there is a better SIS out there, as I looked into every other one I could find and I think you would be hard pressed to find another. There is always room for improvement, and they would do well to try not to do so many things. Some of these things are broken, and I have to question who is telling them to fix them.
Erika Muller | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool Student Information System is being used across our entire organization. To a degree, different levels of education and departments cater their usage to their needs, but the general uses are the same across our organization.

We use PowerSchool SIS to log and track student grade, to take attendance, store and log student information, email students and parents, generate grade reports, and to make due dates and assignment expectations clear to students and parents. Students have student access and parents have their own access to track grades and assignments as well.

PowerSchool could be described as "the glue" that holds together many of the logistical details in education. It would be nearly impossible to do our jobs without it.
  • Intuitive to use - Many of the features are those that you would easily be able to easily use simply by testing them out
  • Comprehensive Student information-- PowerSchool is the one tool needed to view, log, and track student and parent information. Everything from student birthdays to their individualized educational needs can be logged and tracked in PowerSchool. This makes it very easy for multiple teachers and school personnel to be aware of what students need to be successful.
  • Multiple functions-- PowerSchool tracks attendance, holds/creates seating charts, has a "gradebook" for teachers, provides many options to make the gradebook authentic and specific according to the content one is teaching, provides the ability to send out mass emails to students and/or parents, and much more.
  • Gradebook Application quits or times out sometimes -- The GradeBook portion of PowerSchool will sometimes randomly quit as I am putting in grades. Although I can easily log back in, it can be a nuisance to deal with this.
For anyone in education, primarily secondary education, PowerSchool is well-suited. In the digital age we live in, it provides optimal features for the teacher to make information tracking, attendance, and grading easy. It also provides instant information to the students when grades and other information are input.

Some of the features may be less suitable for lower elementary. However, I am in secondary education, so there may be other uses for lower el. that I am unaware of. Given that most lower el. teachers do not track grades using points to formulate a letter grade, this feature in PowerSchool would not be entirely useful for them.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PowerSchool for several pieces of our student information. First, we use it for attendance and to track absences and tardies. Secondly, we use the lunch count section. We have just begin to use the automated messaging/calling feature for delinquent lunch balances to help notify families of balances. We also use the gradebook installed to our desktops. It is nice to have a program that all faculty uses so that we are able to help each other with difficulties. It is also nice to have all of our student information in one spot to access.
  • Automated calling/messaging for delinquent lunch balances
  • Ease of accessing student information quickly
  • Ability to view how students are doing in other classrooms and not just classes with you
  • It can be difficult adding assignments to the gradebook if you don't click the right sequence of boxes
  • Some information is buried in reports where you wouldn't expect them to be
  • Setting up the gradebook for the first time may not make sense, especially if you are using standards based grading
I don't believe I have any situations where PowerSchool wouldn't be appropriate. It helps to keep student information readily available for teachers to gain contact info, health info, grades, and attendance. It has made it nice for myself to not have paper files for each student in my desk for four sections since I can look everything up on my computer.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used as the district-wide student database. Students only need to be registered once in a single location. It allows for one unified history for each student. Transfers from one school to another are simple and easy and all a student's records follow them from one place to another without anything getting lost. There is no confusion for parents and all supporting documentation can be uploaded and attached to each child's record cutting down on the amount of hard copy paperwork that needs to be kept on each student. Anytime someone needs to reference a document it is right there and they don't have to go hunting for the permanent record files.
  • PowerSchool can be customized to fit your exact needs. Pages and content can be modified/added or substracted to fit exactly what you need to save for each student.
  • Students can be transferred from one location to another easily. This makes continuity of data and reocrds seamless.
  • PowerSchool can be set up to work with other systems like IEP Direct and SchoolMessenger. This allows for easier communications with parents and easier communications between schools for special education services.
  • My district has customized PowerSchool to fit what we need it to do and is constantly updated as the State of CT comes up with new laws and regulations we need to abide by.
  • My biggest issue is not being able to see what the teachers see. PowerSchool and PowerTeacher are not the same and what they see isn't always what I see.
  • Cross-platform usage isn't always easy.
It is well suited as a database and can be expanded to save anything you can think of on a student. It is less suited as a cross-platform resource depending on your needs and how it is set up with permissions and access.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I work for a school district located in a rural area with three schools - elementary, middle, and high school. We use PowerSchool Student Information System in all of our schools to keep track of our students for many things such as grades, attendance, demographics, contact information, etc. It acts as an electronic file of everything we need to store on our students.
Because PowerSchool holds so much information on our students that we can sort and download specific information electronically to use in different ways. For example, if I purchase an online assessment or program that requires student names and grade levels to be entered into their system, I am able to easily export the information from PowerSchool in a CSV file that can be uploaded into the online assessment or program. This saves me hours of time and allows us to begin using the assessment or program sooner.
  • 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.
  • It would be great if PowerSchool had an alert pop-up for teachers when they use an assignment category that is not set up in Final Grade Calculation. As it is, if a teacher used an assignment category that is not set up, they cannot print a report card.
  • PowerScheduler does not work for our secondary schools because we have limited classes available. We would love a solution that could help with this.
There are times when classroom assignments need to be weighed instead of received an equal portion of a grade. PowerSchool allows teachers to weigh assignments.

The new add-on products allow for more information to come from the same place. Everyone loves having one place to go with one login to remember. Being able to access student progress with graphs and charts really helps us monitor student success.

PowerSchool is customizable to your school needs. Teachers can add their own assignments and administrators can determine what data they want to collect.
November 18, 2018

Wonderful Product Review

Steve Bynum | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
PowerSchool is the SIS for our student data. It is the central hub for student and teacher data to satisfy the requirements for educational reporting to the state and federal levels. It is being used by our administrators, teachers, parents and students. It helps the parents stay abreast of all the information on their students.
  • Web based solutions running a very reliable oracle database.
  • Very user-friendly.
  • It has a very strong support team!
  • The state reporting is written to the specs of our department o0f education with makes reports easy.
  • They are improving it every day by staying on top of the ever changing technology world!
  • Again it is very user-friendly so it is hard to say that is hard to use.
  • Don't change a thing!
It allows me to connect from the backend using a variety of third-party software to query the database. Being that you can only query and not writeback through this connection, it cuts down on any protentional mistakes with uploading data. I can write lots of queries against the database to get data very easily.
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