Upgrade scheduled for the teacher gradebook

All,

There is a maintenance upgrade scheduled for the PowerTeacher gradebook. We have it scheduled for December 26th -29th. There should be few users at this time. Changes that occur to the gradebook will be minimal and do not require additional training. All new parts of the gradebook will be explained on the teacher blog.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Adele

Principals - info on the upgrade for the PowerTeacher section of PS

Here's the notice on the teacher blog:

Teachers,

I spoke during the summer of an upgrade to PowerTeacher that would be available around the holiday time. The release is set to happen in mid December and here is what I have found so far that it will contain:

* The ability to import scores

*A "final grades mode" button for you to let the office know your grades are ready to be published to the report cards

*A "mouse over" for comments, which means if you put your mouse over the area where you added a comment you will be able to see the comment without needing to click and reopen Score Inspector

*The Categories box has now been moved to the same place as the other icons on top of the page so you will no longer have to go to "Tools" to open create categories

What is NOT in the upgrade is a Seating Chart, something that was mentioned originally. There is a seating chart program that I can obtain from another company so I will look into it after the upgrade.

I will keep you informed as I receive information.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Adele

How to Print Report cards

Prior to the printing of report cards the teachers (core and special subject areas) must have completed comments, pluses and checks, and grading. The steps the teachers need to follow are on the teacher blog, http://domps.blogspot.com/. Once all teachers confirm they have followed the directions, schools new to the system will need to call me to store the information. Report cards will not print with grades or comments until the grading is historically saved. Please note: once grades are stored, teachers can not change them. Please contact me if this is an issue.





Printing of the report cards takes no more than a day. Those schools who are "live" to parents will need to store grades as close as possible to print time. Once grades are stored parents can see them on line. It would be best to either email or text me on my cell phone to complete the storing process. The process for storing grades takes only minutes - the most time consuming part is the printing process.





How to print:





First, click on the grade level number on the opening page of PowerSchool. Once the list of students appear, click on the arrow in the empty box to choose a function - choose Print Report. On the next screen, click on the arrow next to the question, "Which report?" and choose "Metuchen 1" for first grade classes, "Metuchen 2" for second grade classes, "Metuchen 3" for third grade classes, etc. The grade level must match the report card. The Report Queue page will appear. Depending on the number of students you have in that grade level will determine the amount of time for the reports to be processed. I recommend running 3 grade levels at a time. Repeat the above step for each grade and let it run. Come back to it several minutes later. Once the word "running" turns into the word "completed" (if you are not sure what this means see previous blog entry regarding running attendance report) you can open the file for printing. Since our report cards are two sided and many of you have the two sided Ricoh printers follow the directions below:





Once the file is open and you click "File" then "Print" at the top of the page, you will need to select the correct printer. When choosing the duplex printer you must click on "Properties" before you click on Print. When the properties page is open you must choose to turn the duplex on as shown in the picture below:

Once the duplex is turned on you will need to make sure it prints from the left as shown in this picture:

PLEASE TEST A SINGLE REPORT CARD PRINTING PRIOR TO THE TRUE PRINTING PROCESS. You will want to make sure it works well before the printing date. Although grades and comments will not print, you will be able to see if the front and back print correctly.

Time to Print Report Cards - Part I

The first marking period ends on November 7th. When do you print report cards? Printing of report cards is done in the OFFICE, not by the individual teachers. There is no typing involved - all information comes from PowerSchool. The paper that is required is simply regular 8 1/2 x 11 paper - no special color or type required. I know that the previously printed report card was larger than that size but it is not required anymore.

The first step, for those new to this system is to make sure your teachers have the grades in their quarter final grade correct. This must be done by having the teachers verify or let you know the grades are correct ann all comments and checks and pluses are done. Information for the teachers regarding this step is on the teacher blog - please have them refer to it. Once all the teachers have verified the grades are correct the PowerSchool person in your school MUST call me to store the grades. IF THIS PROCEDURE IS NOT DONE GRADES WILL NOT APPEAR ON THE REPORT CARD.

The above step must be done two days prior to the printing day. Printing should not take place more than 2 days before the report cards are to be sent home. Once I store the grades, which is called historically saving grades we are ready to print. That will be in the next post. Please e-mail me with the dates you think you will be saving grades and I will add it to my calendar.

Adele

Did you know - you can run a monthly birthday list?

There is a birthday list that can be run from PowerSchool to list the students who have a birthday each month - it lists their names, birthdates, grade and age. Here's how to get yours:

First, click on Reports



Then choose the last item, "Reporting Engine"



There are two Enchanced Birthday List choices, choose the second one:




The next page has three important areas. Go toward the bottom of the page. Click in the empty boxes on the right hand side. Then choose the year, 2008. The last part is to choose the month. Both choices must be the same if you want one month to print. If you want more than one month than the second choice should be the last month. Click submit on the bottom right side of the page when you are done.



Once you click on Submit, a new page will open up with the actual report. Use the regular "file" and "print" on your computer screen in the upper left hand corner.

How to run an Attendance Report and Check Which Teachers did not take attendance

Now that school has started, the Attendance must be checked in the PowerSchool system. The teachers should report attendance in PowerSchool the same time frame that they used with a paper reporting system. Once the attendance is taken the office (or nurses office) must run a report of absences. Here is how that is done:

First, log onto the system and click on Absentee Report.



On the next page, below the codes you must check "HR" to bring up the absence codes for Homeroom only. Homeroom is set in the system as the Daily Attendance that counts toward the required school attendance per child.





Then click on "Submit" at the bottom of the page. Once you are directed to the "Report Queue" you will see the attendance report with the word "running" on the right hand side. You must click on the little blue "refresh" word on the page until the word "running" turns into the word "completed."




After you click on the word "completed" you will see the list of students who are absent or late. It would be best to print this report and give a copy to each teacher as well as put one in the Go Boxes. This way if there is a crisis everyone has the list of absent students. At the bottom of the list will be a blue link that states "Find Teachers who did not take attendance." This should be clicked on to make sure all teachers have taken attendance. Some PreSchool teachers should be on the list if one of their homerooms are not in session that day. No other teacher should be there unless they are not in school that day and a substitute sent the attendance down to the office to be input.




You should also click on "HR" again before clicking the Submit button. Follow the report printing instructions again as above.

How to use the Daily Bulletin

The Daily Bulletin function can be use to give information to staff, parents,teachers, etc who have access to our PowerSchool system. To get to the daily bulletin, first click on "Special Functions."



Once on this page, click on the link that says "Daily Bulletin Setup."




From here there are 4 things to do - First, name the Bulletin - it could be as simple as "News for the Week of August 4" but if you don't put in a name it will not save. Second, put in a date. The date is automatically the date of the moment, however, you may want to run the news for more than one day, so choose and change the ending date.

Third, choose your audience. If you want everyone including parents to see it then choose "Public." If you only want administrators and teachers to see it choose "Teachers." For office staff only and me, choose "Administrators."

Finally, start typing. For longer and public information I advise to compose in a Word program with spell check and then cut and paste into this box. Click "Submit" and you will then be able to see your Daily Bulletin from the front page by clicking on Daily Bulletin on the left side of the page.

Did you Know - you can keep track of staff certification and degrees?

Again, our friend Melissa from Bishop Ahr has created a page that can be used by all schools on the staff section. To input information on staff degrees, years of hire, tenure, etc. Click on the staff window and choose a staff member by typing in the last name in the "Search Staff" box.

Once in the box, click on the left hand side "BGA Certification.



Once the page opens, complete the information. You will need to change it yearly, the system will not add the years. Please note: since this page was built for BGA, it does say "years at BGA." If you choose to use this page, it can not be modified to state your school name. You will need to ignore the wording.

How to enroll one student at a time to classes

You've already added grouped students to the class lists. And sure enough, more students come to register after the class list has been given to the teacher. Before you rerun the list, you need to add the single new student to the class. This is done differently than the group enroll.

First, on the opening page of PowerSchool, type in the student's last name to find them. If you just enrolled the student and are at the "not enrolled screen" skip to the next step.



On the left hand side of the page, move down to the bottom section of the page under the heading of Schedule. Click on "Modify Schedule." The student's schedule, or lack of it, will be in the middle of the page. Choose the type of class that you wish listed. In my example I looked for available classes for Period 7. Our elementary schools have class expressions listed as HR for homeroom, Rel for religion, etc. Once the choices appear, check for the correct teacher and change the date to reflect the date the student joins (or joined) the class. Then once that's done go back to the blue link (next to the number 1) and click on the link to automatically enroll the student in the class.





Once you click the link, you should see the scheduled class under the student's schedule. If it is a lower grade class, the student will be enrolled in all classes associated with the homeroom. In that case, all new students from PreK - 8 should be enrolled in homeroom. For grades PreK-4, in most schools the students travel from one class to another as a homeroom and will automatically be enrolled in all classes. For grades 5-8 where students do not travel from one class to another as a homeroom, the students must be individually added to those classes in addition to the homeroom class.

Give classes from one teacher to another

When adding new teachers and giving them classes, it is best to transfer the class from the previous teacher to the new teacher than to create new classes. Creating new classes should only be as necessary for a class that did not previously exist.

Preferable prior to changing the past teacher to the status of "no longer here", add the new teacher to the system. Once the teacher is available in the system, click on teacher schedules from the opening page.





On the left hand side of the page, click on the name of the teacher currently assigned to the class. The teacher's schedule will appear in the middle-right section of the page. Click on the Section number (Sec #) of the class that needs to be transferred to the new teacher.




Once you click on the blue section number you will come to a page that contains all data related to the class. PLEASE do not click on or change anything other than the teacher. Move down with your mouse to the middle of the page where you can see the name of the teacher assigned to the class. Click on the arrow next to the teacher's name and all teachers assigned to the school will appear. Click on the name of the teacher the class should now be assigned to and go to the bottom of the page and click "Submit."




You can check if the change was completed by clicking on "teacher schedule" again on the left hand side and choose the new teacher. You should see the class with the new teacher. IMPORTANT NOTE: Each class MUST be done individually - there is no way at this time to transfer all of one teachers classes to another.

Did you Know - You can keep track of employee attendance?

I will be publishing some "Did You Know" sections for new items that might be of interest to the schools. Melissa Conover from Bishop Ahr created a custom screen to keep track of teacher attendance. She was kind enough to make it available to all our schools.

To keep track of teacher absences, first click on "Staff" on the opening screen.




Then choose an employee by either typing their last name in the search box, or choose a letter of the alphabet to choose the teacher. Once you have the teacher's information on the screen, choose the "BGA Staff Attendance" option on the left hand side. Complete the information and save. You can write whatever you want - a date and the reason, whether sick or personal, or whatever text is needed. Don't forget to deduct the used days from the banked number.

How to add New Staff

Once you log onto the PowerSchool site, look on the left hand side and choose from the menu "staff."



Once logged onto the staff page, click on the link "new staff."



When the new staff page opens, complete the information in the manner shown in the picture. Please note - an ID number MUST be assigned to complete the process. Choose any number between 3001 and 4000. If the number is taken, then it will bring you back and you can try with another number. At the bottom of the page (just as with the students, do not enter social security numbers and birthdates are optional for teachers. They can be input with just month and day if you wish, no year) choose staff status as either teacher or staff (office, nurse, principal, etc.) and then submit.



Once you have submitted the information, the screen that appears is the scheduling screen. If you have classes to transfer from one teacher to another that is the next lesson. If classes need to be add, then please contact me by phone or best, e-mail with what is needed. I must be notified of all new staff so I can set up their security.

Lesson 2 - Enroll a group of students in a class

Once you have the student in the system, you might see that the student's status is "not enrolled." This means the student is in your school however, not assigned any classes. In this lesson I will show you how to "mass enroll" a grade level into a teacher's class.

For many of the elementary schools, I have set up the lower grades (K-4) so that the staff will only have to enroll the students into a homeroom and the students will automatically filter into all of the associated classes; math, science, social, art, music, etc. Upper grades, such as grades 5-8 may not travel together as a "homeroom group" to some subjects so those classes are not associated. Next lesson will be on how to select individual students in the same grade for different classes. But for now, let's assume everyone in that grade is going into the same homeroom.

First, on your opening screen once you've logged on, click on a grade level. Remember, clicking on any pictures in this blog will make them bigger for you to see.



Once you see all of the students for that grade:



You will click on the empty box (this is considered the
"Function" box) and choose
"Mass Enroll in Classes." This will take all of the students to the next step.






You will have to make some choices. First choice is the teacher. Click on the arrow under
"teacher" and choose the homeroom teacher, in this case it's me :)




You'll notice that the Expression section defaults as
"HR" which stands for Homeroom. Since this is what you need for now let it be. Next, choose the "course." The course begins with HR and is followed by the grade number. In the elementary schools it is either HRP, HRK, HR1, HR2, HR3, etc. The date is the next choice. It should be the date you are working on in the summer so the list can be available to you asap.


Once you see the green "processing" bar - wait. For the lower grades it will take a while because it is going to all classes the children will attend. For the upper grades it will be quicker since less classes are associated with the homeroom.

Once the process is complete it will tell you the number of students enrolled successfully in the class. If you want to check this, return to the beginning page of PowerSchool by clicking on the upper left hand corner logo and then click on "Teacher Schedules." Choose the schedule for the teacher whose class you just filled. You will see the number of students and can click on the blue number to see the names (my example has 5 children in the class even though you saw me enroll 4 because one student was already there - Minnie Mouse :)

First lesson - enrolling a new student

For those of you in class or need a refresher, here's the directions to enroll a new student(CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO SEE IT LARGER):

First, log on and choose the link for Special Functions:




Then choose the link to Enroll New Student (all links in PowerSchool are alphabetically arranged):



Then complete the information on the following page. Do not forget to put in the FTE (this means full time equivalent - the child equals one full person in our school) and be careful to check the grade level. The most common mistake is that the grade level is not checked and the child automatically ends up in PreK or grade 9 depending on the school. Then you will have to call me because you are not able to fix it :)



Beneath the items pictured you add the address, mother's name, father's name and sibling names if known. Once you click submit you will be taken to a page where students with the same last name, phone number or similar last names are shown. If the child is not one of those listed, don't worry if a sibling is listed, then click on continue and the child will be enrolled into your school. You are not finished ~ the child's records must be updated with other information and then the child needs to be enrolled in a class. Viewing the child will show them as being a member of your school by the initials of your school next to the name on the screen. You will also see the words "not enrolled." Don't panic ~ it just means the student needs to be added to a class. That will be in the next post.

Welcome to the Administrator's Blog

Welcome to all our "seasoned" and new PowerSchool Administrators! I have a blog for teachers and a blog for parents but this one is just for you! I will post information that you have learned in sessions with me and I hope you will respond with helpful hints that you have learned so everyone can see them also or questions that I can answer for all. Use the history to look up particular areas of PowerSchool that may have been addressed in previous months. I look forward to making your job easier :)