PowerSchool is very user-friendly, but lacks visually pleasing data
March 19, 2018
PowerSchool is very user-friendly, but lacks visually pleasing data
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with PowerSchool Student Information System
PowerSchool Student Information System is used throughout the school. It is used by teachers, administrators, students, and parents. The program is used to house students personal/home information, which allows their school team members to effectively communicate with their given family members. This information is updated by the guidance department or an administrator. PowerSchool Student Information System also provides detailed school information, including grades, attendance, GPA, as well as behavior and communication logs for given school members with administrative logins. The school information is updated by guidance, administrators, as well as classroom teachers.
Students, parents, and support personnel are able to view information but are unable to make any changes within the system. The only time students are able to make edits are during course selection time, where they work within a specific page and submit their requests for the following years classes. The most beneficial part of the PowerSchool Student Information System is for students, parents, and support personnel to view the student's updated grades, which include grades for specific assessments and assignments, as well as missing work.
Students, parents, and support personnel are able to view information but are unable to make any changes within the system. The only time students are able to make edits are during course selection time, where they work within a specific page and submit their requests for the following years classes. The most beneficial part of the PowerSchool Student Information System is for students, parents, and support personnel to view the student's updated grades, which include grades for specific assessments and assignments, as well as missing work.
- Having one linked system for student information including grades, data, attendance, etc., linked up to the grade-book (Power Teacher Pro) is very convenient for teachers.
- PowerSchool allows support staff, administration, parents, and students to all view overall grades as well as detailed information. This is a nice feature so that all members of a student's team can be on the same page, especially when there are missing assignments.
- PowerSchool has the feature to alert parents when students are absent from a class. Parents can check student's attendance at any time, but also can be alerted.
- While administrators have the ability to view schedules in a format that is easy to view, students and teachers are unable to have a yearlong or trimester long schedule that is printer friendly.
- The view available for looking back on attendance is not user-friendly. The grid per block is hard to read on both the screen and after being printed.
- As a teacher, there is no place within PowerSchool to document communication with students or parents. Having a log would be a nice feature so that there is a record and other staff members could see the history of communication.
- Having one system within the school district is beneficial. Teachers are able to access a variety of information and also do input all within the same program.
- Communication with parents has been impacted greatly, as they always have information at their fingertips without teachers having to call or email them with a grade update. Parents are able to check student's grades at any time.
I used Infinite Campus previously while working at a different school. My position was the same at both schools. PowerSchool is more user-friendly than Infinite Campus for those staff members who are not strong with utilizing technology. Infinite Campus allows users to print more viewable information - such as attendance and schedules. The other benefit of Infinite Campus is that there is an online log option, where all staff members are able to log communication. This communication can be delineated between another staff member, student, parent, or another team member. This is very beneficial so that the team can be aware of all communication home.