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Skyward Student Management System

Skyward Student Management System

Overview

What is Skyward Student Management System?

Skyward, headquartered in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, offers the Skyward Student Management System, a k-12 student information system which provides classroom tools (e.g. gradebook, attendance tracking, etc), Family Engagement tools with portal, as well as admin and student services task management.

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Recent Reviews

Confident User

9 out of 10
January 15, 2024
Incentivized
As a music teacher, I teach the entire school population. Currently, I teach 10 classes. My grades are in the following categories, class …
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TrustRadius Insights

Skyward SMS is a versatile student management system that is widely used across various departments in schools. With its user-focused …
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Skyward works for us

10 out of 10
March 18, 2021
Incentivized
We use Skyward district-wide for business, scheduling, grades, food service, health. You name it, Skyward is basically a one-stop shop for …
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Awards

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Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Product Details

What is Skyward Student Management System?

Skyward Student Management System Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Skyward, headquartered in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, offers the Skyward Student Management System, a k-12 student information system which provides classroom tools (e.g. gradebook, attendance tracking, etc), Family Engagement tools with portal, as well as admin and student services task management.

Reviewers rate Student Data Security highest, with a score of 8.8.

The most common users of Skyward Student Management System are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(25)

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!

Skyward SMS is a versatile student management system that is widely used across various departments in schools. With its user-focused platform, educators can effectively focus on educating students and making informed decisions. The software serves as a centralized database for student information, including schedules, grades, behavior history, and contact details. Teachers find the software user-friendly and reliable for tasks such as entering grades and taking attendance. Additionally, Skyward SMS enhances communication between students, teachers, and parents, facilitating data collection and organization. Parents and students also benefit from the system by being able to access grades, receive messages from teachers, and monitor assignments. Moreover, the software's ability to share student information across years and locations within the school district makes it a convenient tool for administrators to manage various school-related tasks such as business operations, scheduling, grades, and food service. Overall, Skyward SMS has proven to be effective and useful for teachers, schools, and the entire district by increasing productivity through instant access to information and enabling accurate record-keeping while promoting communication among all stakeholders involved in a student's education journey.

Flexibility in Customization: Several users have praised Skyward for its flexibility in capturing data and customizing the system according to their specific needs. This customization capability has been highly appreciated as it allows users to tailor Skyward to their unique requirements.

Efficient Customer Support: Many reviewers have highlighted that Skyward provides quick response to trouble tickets, with the company striving to reach out to the customer within an hour and start the process of resolution. This prompt and efficient customer support has been seen as a significant advantage by users.

Dedication to User Satisfaction: Users have consistently mentioned that Skyward is very user-focused and constantly looks for ways to enhance the end-user experience and improve the system. This dedication to user satisfaction has been highly praised as it demonstrates Skyward's commitment to ensuring a positive and user-friendly experience.

Visually Unappealing Interface: Some users have expressed dissatisfaction with the current interface of Skyward Student Management System, stating that it is visually unappealing compared to more modern web products.

Confusing Terminology: Users have mentioned that the terminology used for headings in the system can be confusing. For example, labeling the caseload of students as "My Activities" instead of "My Caseload" has caused confusion and made it harder for users to navigate the system.

Difficulties with Grades Calculation: Several reviewers have reported difficulties with Skyward's ability to accurately calculate grades according to the standards-based gradebook used by some schools. This issue has created frustration among teachers who rely on accurate grade calculations for their students' academic progress.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-16 of 16)
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Bill Black | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Grading
  • Attendance
  • Report Card posting
  • Does not import assignments or grades from Google Classroom
  • Software times out too quickly, if inactive for a short period of time
  • Should come with "Intro to Skyward Student Management System" video trainings for new teachers or people who have not used this software tool before.
January 15, 2024

Confident User

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Stores identifying student information
  • Ease of adding events with editable dates
  • Includes room for comments
  • Computes overall total grade
  • The ability to transfer grades from spreadsheets into Skyward Student Management System
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Student and family contact information
  • Storing unique data on students (photo permission, classes, etc.)
  • Employee management (timesheet, vacation, sick leave, etc.)
  • UI could use an update to be more user friendly.
  • Search functionality is not great on the student side.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Allow custom grading categories with editable weight.
  • Automatically calculate midterm and final grades.
  • Store data for students across their entire educational career.
  • Integration with outside systems (Google Classroom) can be clunky at times (though it has gotten better with time.)
  • Student search can only be done by last name.
  • Messaging is not well integrated into the entire application, it can only be accessed from the messaging center.
Brad Owens | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Skyward does well with managing the students' information. It was easy to find a student's schedule, grades, behavior record, or family information because it was all separated out.
  • Another strength is the system’s way of requesting time off. All of the steps are laid out in a organized manner, and you can check the status of the request with one click.
  • Skyward also pairs well with other applications. Whenever I need a substitute for a class, Skyward links me to Aesop (the absence software) and allows me to put in the request. When I’m done, Skyward updates automatically with that information.
  • One area Skyward can improve is the terminology used for its headings. The caseload of students that I manage is labeled under “My Activites” instead of using “My Caseload”.
  • Another area of improvement is the way grades are calculated. My school uses a standards-based gradebook and Skward has a hard time calculating the grades the way we want it.
  • Skyward can also improve in the customization of the homepage. There are too many buttons to click to get to the screen for attendance, and it’s hard to put a shortcut on the homepage.
Scott Herring | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Flexibility. This multitude of fields available makes it easy to capture data the way we want or need to.
  • Quick response to trouble tickets. The company strives to reach out to the customer within an hour and start the process of resolution.
  • User focused. Improvements to the system always look at how the end user experience can be enhanced.
  • Interface. The current SMS 2.0 interface, while functional and user friendly is not visually appealing when compared to more currently designed web products. This is being corrected with the implementation of their Qmlativ product which takes aesthetics and functionality to the next level.
  • More granular role based security. Again, this is being corrected with their newest product version. SMS 2.0 is very funtional and meets the needs we have, but security tweaks are preferred.
  • It's difficult to pick out what areas we would like to see improvement on as we are already scheduling our transition to the new version and we know that many of our concerns have already been addressed.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Skyward has the ability to create reports for almost every field that we use which is so robust.
  • The information that is saved will be forever a part of a record.
  • Skyward's reporting can get confusing so it would be nice if it was cleaner and possibly came with some common reports other schools use too.
  • Skyward's GUI is out of date and needs a refresher.
  • Skyward can have compatibility issues after an update.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Skyward does really well with the teacher, student, and parent chain.
  • Skyward is easy to use.
  • Skyward helps the school district with state reporting.
  • Very good teacher grade book.
  • Excellent student online enrollment.
  • Skyward should move to a more modern SQL platform.
  • Skyward should perform better testing on their solution before rolling it out to users.
  • The Skybuild interface should be updated including adding more fields.
March 15, 2019

Spectacular Skyward

Isha Gangopadhaya | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Put in grades of students for every semester.
  • Skyward electronically averages student grades.
  • Put in comments for report cards every nine weeks.
  • Take attendance daily.
  • Find student information regarding addresses, contact information, student allergies, parental rights etc.
  • Write up students if necessary.
  • Response to intervention is now available on Skyward.
  • Skyward logs me out if it's inactive for a certain period of time and that frustrates me as a user.
  • At the end of a semester, when a lot of users are on Skyward, Skyward server goes down and this happens frequently.
Liz Swarczewski | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • It's a helpful way to hold and organize a large database of information. This is helpful when working at a school with a large number of students and when there is a need to pull up one specific student and see all of their information, past and present, in one place.
  • Helpful way to organize and track student and staff meal purchases.
  • Easy to track student grades and post comments about student performance.
  • Confusion when it comes to student grades- sometimes there are two different letter grades for a student for what is posted as "TR1" and "PR1." How does a teacher know which of these grades will be posted to a student's report card? How does a teacher know what the student's actual grade is for a particular course?
  • Switching between the Educator Access Plus and Student Management tabs can be complicated, especially for those new to the system. Why can't everything be in one place?
  • I recognize that Skyward logs out after a certain period of inactivity to preserve privacy of users, but is there a way to change those settings so that Skyward does not log out as frequently? It is difficult to keep having to log back in completely again.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Skyward organizes student grades in an easy to read way.
  • Skyward keeps track of all of the contact information of each student and is organized according to the best contact person.
  • Skyward allows the students to keep track of their own grades, and allows the teacher to keep their students informed.
  • Skyward is not particularly user-friendly. It seems like an out-dated program that is difficult to navigate at first.
  • Skyward has many helpful tools, but they are difficult to find and understand.
  • Skyward doesn't allow the students and parents to see the comments that a teacher may put on an assignment's grade and reduces the level of understanding the parent could have about their student's grade.
  • Children and parents see the same information. There should be a different viewing option for both.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • increases productivity, in that no longer are we waiting for paper documents. it can all be accessed anywhere you have internet access.
  • Ease of information that can be accessed quickly and securely.
  • The interface is really easy to use. Most things are labeled and are easy to interpret.
  • A better looking interface would be awesome because it would look more appealing.
  • Instead of having drop-down menus, we could have buttons just on the front screen with our favorites instead of the limited favorites that are currently offered.
  • Better use of the screen, currently it loads in such a small window and then when made full screen it looks funny.
Lindsay K. Riessen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • It allows a family-friendly interface that connects the teachers, school and parents to share information about assignments and grades with current and real-time updated information.
  • It allows schools to be able to connect siblings in families by showing where other children within the same family are located.
  • It allows a messaging option so that teachers can communicate with parents and guardians and students of multiple classes all at the same time.
  • It allows multi-class grading that helps teachers be able to implement assignments that apply to more than one class but not all.
  • I would love to see teachers have a more user-friendly dashboard for each student where there were icons/buttons that could be pushed to take you to that student's IEP, grades, etc. It's all on a sidebar now, but some thing you have to do a few click-thru's to get to. Overall I have very few critiques of Skyward.
  • I would like something that communicates more with parents of how to maximize their use of Skyward. For the not-so digitally inclined parents, it can be a bit intimidating to navigate this database system.
Lucinda Fox | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Skyward allows us to customize SIS accesses with security groups. This way each user only has access to what they need.
  • Skyward allows us to customize reports. We are able to pull specific data rather than relying on pre-set reports
  • Skyward allows us to run state report by building or by district.
  • Data mining could be a little overwhelming for users who do not use it often.
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