Opening the Portal – Walpole Public School District's Success USR06 Lynn Rowan, Software Support Specialist Walpole Public Schools

Agenda Goals and Benefits Overview of the portal Planning and preparation Implementation: Setup Communication Portal maintenance Best practices Help Q & A

Original Goals Provide tool for student achievement Increase home-school communication to more fully engage families Change from scheduled progress reports to ongoing communications

Added Benefits Parent conferences become much more productive and substantive User validation of student data Consistent grade reporting Transparency in our record-keeping Production and mailing costs cut substantially

Overview of Family Portal Home tab: - Class and school announcements -Recent activity Family tab: - Demographics - Attendance - Conduct - Transcript - Schedule - Online course requests - Transactions - Notifications

Overview of Portal Tabs Academics tab: Details (Grades) Assignments Attendance Reports: Report cards Schedules Transcript

Overview of Portal Tabs Activities tab: Details Members Events Calendar tab: Preferences

Planning the Roll-Out Communicate with district administrators to set goals and timelines. Determine: o Features o Schools o Users Establish/communicate gradebook grade reporting standards with staff. Identify support staff.

Preparation Contacts: – Clean up; delete where possible, merge where needed. Communication: – Draft Family portal letter. – Craft student account logon letter. – Create Web resources for users. Develop training plan: – How will families be trained? – What training is needed for teachers/staff?

Implementation: Account Setup Create families – use last name and address. Create student accounts: o Custom login expression used to match to school network login. o Expiration dates used to identify school. Create family accounts for emergency priority 1 contacts.

Implementation: Communication Family portal letter distributed. Logon page link added at district and school level. Directions for login and report printing posted on Web sites. Set up hands-on workshop at open houses, parent conferences.

Family Portal Maintenance Ongoing support for families, students, teachers Ongoing updates to family members Customize templates and reports for portal Add new users/delete exited as needed Create co-custodial parents accounts as requested

Best Practices Central student registration Training around standardized data entry Emphasize transparency of data to all staff (i.e., conduct referrals, student names) Use ability to hide features until they are test-driven and consistent (i.e., conduct)

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Questions & Answers

Thank you.