1. PowerSchool Introduction
BRRSD Grades K-4 Faculty Training
Summer/Fall 2010

2. Trainer Commitment
In return for having off on January 17, 2011, trainers must complete six hours of professional development:
As you decide how to complete your additional hours, please discuss with your Principal and then forward your plan to me.
Two hours are completed today, on Thursday, September 30.
The additional four hours can be met in a number of ways:
Completion of a Pearson Distance Learning Course on Standards Based Report card (estimated two hours)
Attendance at a second after-school session in November on the Standards Based Report card in BRRSD (estimated two hours)
Work with fellow teachers after hours, or on your time, to facilitate report card data entry

3. Course Procedures/Issues
During this time together, we will -
Focus mainly on using the Gradebook in order to enter grades for the January Report card
“Parking Lot” Unknown or Unanswerable Questions, particularly related to grading practices within the schools

4. PowerSchool Architecture
Admin
Parents
Teachers
Full roll-out
Not until
Gradebook
PowerSchool Central Database
Standards must be turned on

5. You will use only the Training Server for your work the teachers.
The Training Server is accessed from the web site by clicking on the button for District, then selecting District Web Resources, then from the left pane click on PowerSchool, and below that button click on “District Training Environment”. At the bottom of that page, you always select Teacher Portal on the Training Server. The login for the Training Server is labeled:
The most common mistake made by teachers in accessing the training environment is trying to log into the Production or Live server.

6. Keep Default Categories and Icons (Homework, Project, Quiz, Test)
Gradebook Practices
Keep Default Categories and Icons (Homework, Project, Quiz, Test)
Additional Categories can be added at teacher, relative weights can be changed.
But for the sake of a consistent look in the Parent Portal, please do not change the appearance of the initial assignment categories.

7. Later –but soon– we can together learn about “Standards Based Grading with Assignments”. So you might as well check that off now!

8. The only place that you need to go in the Gradebook for entering report card grades is the button that says “Final Grades”.

9. Enter grades by double clicking in any standard/measure within a subject area.

10. You can also right click and fill all, or blank, cells with a single grade!

11. By double-clicking in the individual student cell for ‘Student Comment’ in Homeroom, you can enter an individual comment for that student.

12. You can also right click at the top of the column, select Fill Comments, and fill-in a single comment for all students, or only those without any other comment.
[There will be no ‘canned’ comments for you.]
Once the report card is finalized, you will have to abide by whatever restriction we give you about the maximum number of characters that you can type for the comment. It will be substantially less than 4000.

13. 
When Final Grades are complete, the teacher MUST check off that they are ready.

14. It will be very important that teachers not alter grades for semesters for which report cards have been generated.
The school will retain the printed copy of the report card. And we anticipate there will be a “PDF” version of the report cards on the network for teacher review.
But to avoid a discrepancy between quarters in the printing of the next report card, it will be imperative that teachers do not change the final grade for a prior term.

15. October 11th
The afternoon will be dedicated to your PowerSchool Training
Use the computer lab
Focus only on the skills needed to complete the Report Card in January
Remind everyone to use the Training Server
Consider learning about the Gradebook’s assignment mode and working with the Principal for training other teachers in that use, or inviting them to use the Distance Learning from Pearson

16. The End