PowerSchool Reviews

Pros

My school district switched over to PowerSchool about a year and a half ago. I now use it for grades, attendance, lunch counts, reports, and many other things. What I like most about PowerSchool is the interface. As a teacher, when I log in, the initial screen shows the things I use on a daily basis- attendance, lunch count, and contact information. I like that it is set up in a way that the things I use the most are right there. There is then an additional menu called "Power Teacher Pro" that is used for things like grade entries and reports that I might use more on a monthly basis. The report options offer lots of different variables and allows the user to create PDF, excel, and other types of files. Having these different options has been helpful.

Cons

The user experience has been a positive one for me. However, the initial training we received could use some improvement. The training modules are fairly dry to sit through and can be confusing to navigate.

Pros

We loved using Powerschool for new employee training. It had so much to offer and was very easy to use!

Cons

There is nothing that I dislike about Powerschool.

Alternatives Considered

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to PowerSchool

Pros

I appreciate that I can access my students' demographic information easily. Attendance and lunch count are easy, as well. The student information management aspect of PowerSchool is intuitive. I rarely have to go to our school secretary for details, like I would have in the past.

Cons

The report card function needs some adjustments. The score entry section works well. It even allows you to adjust the font, which my older eyes appreciate. However, the printable report sent to parents each trimester is uncomfortably tiny in terms of font size. Even the comment section is very tiny, and those are some of the most valuable aspects of the report. Also, I'd very much appreciate being able to have a screen view that allowed me to look at each student's individual reports. This would be very helpful in looking for missing scores prior to report cards being printed. I have to do a lot of scrolling and clicking to track an individual child's scores over various subject areas. A single student screen view that allowed me to enter scores, if needed, would be a nice boost to the usability of this product.

Pros

I have been teaching for 15 years and have gone through many school management systems. PowerSchool is by far the best one. I am able to take attendance, keep track of grades, access communication information for the student, I can see their schedule, their grades for each class and what they are missing in that class. Everything I need is in PowerSchool. It's visually appealing, and easy to navigate.

Cons

I teach resource classes and often have several different grade levels in one class. This is set up as multiple classes with the same period number. I wish I could combine those so my attendance page and my grade book aren't so messy.

Pros

I like that PowerSchool is so easy to understand and use. I am on PowerSchool daily to complete IEPs, to contact parents, or to check attendance of my students. It's easy to click the area you need and find your information. PowerSchool also gives me the capability to run reports on students so I can check for behavior referrals, print classroom rosters, and more. I can also submit my hearing screening results easily and it makes a great place to house all of the hearing information for my students.

Cons

The system logs me out after a short period of inactivity. I wish it would allow me to stay logged in longer, but perhaps this is a setting on my corporation's end and not PowerSchool itself. I really have no complaints about PowerSchool, so writing cons is difficult. It's a great, easy to use program.

Pros

I cant think of anything the system is antiquated and ridged more fitting of the 90s

Cons

I can't build an off set schedule to allow for block scheduling of 3 different grade levels. this program was not built for education it was build for programmers.

Pros

I've used this software as both a student and as a teacher, and have always appreciated it. When I was in middle school and high school I would check my grades on PowerSchool, and it was always very convenient and easy to use. Now that I am a teacher, I like that I can easily upload grades and print reports through it. It is so smooth and quick to use and is a great way to develop communication between parents, teachers, and students.

Cons

It's a really good software and I don't have any major complaints. One downside is that students complain about the app being difficult to use and say that it crashes often.

Pros

This is a nice program to gather all of a students information in one place. The reports are very detailed showing as much information as is put into it.

Cons

Some of the attendance reports are challenging to read all of the various codes down at the bottom of the screen, seemingly only separated by commas. The information is only as good as the administrator and has a lot of possibilities for expansion if the administrator chooses to do so. In our case, it is way underutilized.

Pros

What i like most is that it tells you your schedule and the room number to your classes and it’s digital you don’t need to have a paper with your schedule and worry out losing it.

Cons

There is absolutely no cons about PowerSchool

Pros

The versatility. It provides many needed reports, such as attendance, honor rolls, and even connects to Cognos reporting. Report cards are easily printed.

Cons

I have found that the fields we see for student information are quite limited. Our system talks to our SIS, so it may be an issue there, but perhaps there's a way to customize your SIS fields to make it more expansive that I just don't know of yet...

Pros

Powerschool has everything for the district in one place, which makes keeping track of students easy across the board. Grades, attendance, reports, lunch and library fees, any sort of notes, are all kept track in Powerschool, and if a student transfers within the district, the information travels with them, so it really is a wonderful hub for teachers and administrators.

It's also great because parents and students have their own login information so that everyone is able to stay up to date on grades, etc. without teachers having to constantly send home updates.

Cons

Set-up in powerschool is a little more involved than it was in Pearson. And updates aren't automatic but instead have to be done manually. Also, when the system goes down (which is occasionally does), then you're out of luck for literally everything...

Pros

I was given the chance to explore this software when I started teaching at Somerton Middle School. This software helped me to appreciate the importance of technology in keeping the important records of my students - their grades. The PowerSchool is a superb and amazing software because students were able to access their academic standings from time to time. I like also its feature in which seating arrangements can be changed from time to time. With this powerful software, I could definitely say that my school records are very organized and the students were able to know their classroom performance from time to time. Different reports can also be generated in which it helps me to provide hard copy of students reports instantly.

Cons

At this point, when I explored all of its features, I like all of them. PowerSchool really empowers me as a teacher and everything I need in an online software for the teacher is in PowerSchool. The menus are user-friendly and I can easily navigate and switch from one task to another. Over-all, it has no features that I don't like.

Pros

Our school decided to switch our LMS to powerschool because of it's ability to do payroll and other business office functions. It truly is an all in one solution and our teachers/ instructional staff are happy because they truly get the education side of things.

Cons

It is expensive but worth it. You won't find another LMS that has everything integrated on the business and academic side of things.

Pros

We utilize PowerSchool to take attendance daily. This is the system used for our official grades at school. This is incredibly helpful when looking up emergency contact info, birthdates, seating charts, etc.

Cons

There are so many features that I am still learning about, and I've yet to come across something that I do not like about PowerSchool.

Pros

I like that I can take attendance, grade, create data sheets, and more all in the same program. It makes it so that we don't have to learn several programs and try to manually combine our information.

Cons

Sometimes it isn't clear where you need to go in order to change or find certain items. It took some playing to find out where to go for things like weighing grades or finding the grades of students who dropped or switched classes.

Pros

It certainly is speedier to put in grades and create lesson and project listings online, however, the setup at the beginning of each semester is a slog. I don't understand why we can't just continue our settings until we wish to change them.

Cons

As I've mentioned previously, the setup of our classes cannot be continued from semester to semester and the setup is rather onerous. Printing reports, whether it deals with grading or attendance, is ridiculous.

Pros

What I liked most about Powerschool is that I can easily find my child's account and if they have an insufficient lunch balance I can put money into their account online

Cons

What I expected more of from Powerschool was remembering my login information. Recently, I tried logging in with my username and password and it said it doesn't remember my device.

Pros

I use PowerSchool daily. I take attendance in PowerSchool, I use the seating charts, and I enter all of my grades in PowerSchool. I love that my school can upload student pictures. I have nearly 130 students, so it's helpful to be able to see their faces to learn their names. Setting up assignments and entering grades is super easy and you can weight your assignments, you can add extra credit, and you can have PowerSchool figure out final grades, etc. I think it's very useful for anyone who teaches.

Cons

I like everything about the software, I find it invaluable in my day to day life.

Pros

I love Powerschool! I have been using it for several years. It is awesome in that it keeps up with tardies, absences - both excused and unexcused, and of course it keeps up with assignments and grades. I love the various reports that it can run.

Cons

We could use Powerschool for more than we use it. Looks like lunch counts can be kept and discipline issues can be input into Powerschool, but we don't use those features at this time.

Pros

I like that PowerSchool integrates all of my chores. I have one place that I go to to get to my attendance, gradebook and state resources for instruction. I can also see which of my students' parents are using the Parent Portal to monitor their students grades.

Cons

I don't have any complaints about the software itself. I would like to see my school use even more of its features, like Daily Announcements! That would eliminate the need for many of the emails I receive throughout the day.

Pros

It is easy to use. Once you master recognizing the icons, you can quickly input the information you need to begin your day in the classroom. It keeps track of absences in an organized and sufficient way as well as lunch count. It has teacher's backs when needing to provide sufficient evidence of absences/ tardies.

Cons

The icons don't necessarily make sense to me. I wish there were words with the icons, or at least better descriptions when hovering over the icon.

Pros

PowerSchool is the industry standard SIS out there. It takes training and some familiarity, but once you gain that, the tool can cover a tremendous amount of school related needs - scheduling, reporting, grading, etc. Great job PowerSchool.

Cons

The only hurdle to PowerSchool is the fairly extensive traning needed to really learn it well. Otherwise, it's a great product!

Pros

I like how detailed Powerschool is and how it provides a cohesive place for teachers to access information regarding their students. The program offers a one stop places to access student alerts, attendance, and any other imperative information one might need.

Cons

As a new teacher, I found Powerschool difficult to figure out at first. There are a number of options that are available but that I do not know how to truly utilize. I am sure that with support and guidance it would be easier, but the number of options can seem at first like a huge barrier to overcome.

Pros

Taking attendance was easy and you could print reports which was handy to look at. Entering grades wasn't too hard to do.

Cons

Often the program wouldn't be working. There needed to be easier ways to enter some grades and percentages and printing reports was kind of complicated and not super user friendly.

Pros

As a first year teacher, Power school has made my fear of grading so much easier for me. Inputting grades, adding and editing standards, making lists of class grades, student information such as emails are easily accessible, and so much more. When I was still in school to become a teacher, they used and showed us different programs, but Power school is the most efficient program I have used yet. I am a parent as well so I can see the student side and I love that it constantly updates with comments and attendance.

Cons

The only con is that it can sometimes freeze or take too long to load, making me lose my place with grading.