Administrator Essentials

Get Connected to Receive Important Updates 

New to FCPS or Schoology? 

Join the following FCPS Schoology Group to gain access to the latest FCPS Schoology news, tips, and other info.  In Schoology, click Groups > My Groups > Join Group, then enter the following Access Codes:  

• Schoology Updates for FCPS Staff:  F73ZX-93NNR

Important- Be sure to turn on notifications for this group. Open each group in Schoology, click Notifications in the top-right corner, and check Group update posted.

Schoology Advisor Dashboard

This role is limited to specific users in our system.  People who have this role have  VIEW ONLY for student grades/courses in their school or for specific students depending on their role. Please review the documentation for further guidance. 

Updating School Staff in Schoology- eSchool Staff Catalog 

Staff rosters in Schoology, advisor dashboard and more  are controlled by who is active in your  eSchool staff catalog.  Click here for directions on how to add/update staff in the Staff catalog.   Call the eSchool Help desk for assistance. 

Managing Staff Transitions- eSchool - Schoology -Google Drive

LTS, Staff going on leave. Proactively prepare when possible and you will have a seamless transition in Schoology! 

Substitutes

All substitutes credentialed in Schoology (using their FCPS username and password)  24-48 hours after they are activated in Active Directory by HR. You can search for substitutes under Members > FCPS District LMS building.  

• Resident Subs are provisioned the Advisor Role and should be activated in the building's eSchool staff catalog as soon as possible to have access to courses in their building.  

• Long Term Subs should be added to eSchool as the secondary teacher to the classes they're subbing in prior to the assignment. At night, the sync process will add the teacher as a course admin to the appropriate courses in Schoology.   Once the assignment is over, it is imperative that the eSchool  scheduler or registrar remove that sub from the secondary staff so they are removed from the courses once their sub assignment is complete. 

** Reminder: All FCPS substitutes (like FCPS teachers) must sign-in to Chrome with their FCPS credentials to support students AND have the best Schoology experience**

Parent Connections

Primary and secondary guardians are emailed a Parent Access Code at the beginning of the year.   Parent Access Code letters are available in  TAC reports AND eSchool >Report Net >Gradebook folder.   Note: Student usernames and passwords are not on the letters.

 Any requests to  adjust parent/guardian access in Schoology must sent to schoology.help@fcps.org by the counselor or administrator.  

Student Photos In Schoology

Student photos are updated manually as files from the vendor become available. Most original school files are received and loaded by December 15th. Any student with concerns about their picture should speak to their school counselor or administration.  If the school counselor/admin feels the picture will cause a disruption to the student’s learning (potential bullying, incorrect gender identity, etc.) they should contact Schoology.Help@fcps.org to have the picture changed or removed.  Please note: Retake photos are often not available to staff. For all photo change requests a new school approved picture must be submitted.

Transfer Grades/Dropped Courses Documentation 

The document above details guidance the following ways that Guidance Office staff an other Advisor role employees in your school will use Schoology:

• • • To look up students and courses

    • To find a students grade in a dropped course

    • Transfer grades

    • To direct parents on how to view their child's grade in Schoology

Access Archived Course Grades

Completed courses become archived the *day after Report Card grades are due from teachers (about a week after the course ends).  Archived classes can be accessed by Advisors as follows: (Note: For Term 4/EOY- Courses archive the last day of school for students at 11:59pm )

• In the main menu, click Tools > Advisor Dashboard

• Use the Search box to find and select a student to view Current course grades

• To see archived course grades, click Current (in the header) and change to Past

• For assignment grades, select a course (ignore the “Private Access Only” message), then in the browser address bar, remove from the URL the word “preview” and everything after it (example: https://lms.fcps.org/course/1686556038/preview/2113456/advisor).  You will now see the archived course.

• Click the Gradebook tab on the left.

• At the top of the Gradebook, change All Grading Periods to the marking period you want to view.  The assignment grades for all students in the class should now appear.

• • • If the student you are looking for isn't in the gradebook, look above the list of student names and change the section to the section the student is in.

For security reasons, some FCPS resources are not accessible outside of the United States.  FCPS families can use a free or paid VPN service to connect to a United States VPN server.  Once connected to the USA based VPN server, a student would be able to connect and use any FCPS resource remotely.  In the app store, TurboVPN is free to use and available for both Android and Apple smartphones and/or tablets.  If desired, a family may choose to use a paid service such as Private Internet Access (PIA) which is available for all computers, smartphones and tablets to connect to a US based server.  

Note: You cannot login to FCPS Chromebooks from outside the United States.  

For personal devices, here is an example of a free VPN provider for Chrome on a personal Chromebook- Watch Video

Schoology School Updates Overview and Video Tutorial 

Send messages/ information to your staff, students and parents all at once using the School updates tool in Schoology.   This feature is only available to school administrators. 

Schoology Dashboards in RADAR- Updated Daily 

Looking for course analytics without having to be a co-admin on every Schoology course at your school? We are excited to share our newest dashboards.                                                          

 Please go to RADAR > School Data > Attendance> Schoology Analytics.

 Current information included is as follows:  

• Student- Weekly Activity

• Student-daily activity/drill down-  Search by course, teacher or student.  This data includes: student login, accessing assignment and more.

• Parent Connectivity 

• Usage by device

• Student- No Activity

What does it all mean? Check out the  Schoology Data Value Reference sheet

• Schoology is used for course management, day to day communication and grades by all FCPS teachers. 

• Enhancements to Schoology may occur throughout the year. When important updates are made. you will be notified. Any work we do will only make end user experiences with Schoology even better!  

• Parents CAN view all their child's courses and groups in their parent account.  

• Parents cannot submit assignments for their children in their parent account.  

• Parents cannot see comments from other students in their parent account. 

• The student copy of a  Google Drive Assignment is NOT visible to parents in their parent account due to Google Privacy settings.  

• Direct parents to the Schoology page on the FCPS website- www.fcps.org/Schoology  for more training and support videos.