PowerSchool

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.