The audience for this information is new teachers. However, some of the information may also apply to classified staff, nurses, etc. Information that is appropriate for all staff members will be marked with an asterisk. (*).
When a student is enrolled in KCS, he/she has a record created in Aspen, our student information system. The record holds the student's personal profile and is attached to teachers and classes that the student is associated with.
Being attached to a class creates...
a place for the student's class grade to be recorded
enrollments in the Canvas courses and Mastery Connect trackers that are associated with the class
access to digital textbooks or other services that are associated with the class.
Students must be scheduled accurately in Aspen for other systems and services to provide proper access for the student. If a student does not have access to the digital resources associated with a class (EX: enrollment in the class Canvas course, access to digital textbooks, etc), it is likely that he/she is not correctly classified in Aspen.
If you suspect that a student's schedule or record is inaccurate in Aspen, please contact your school's registrar. That is typically someone who works in the front office.
Students have one set of login credentials that are used across KCS systems and resources.
These same credentials are used to login to their Chromebooks.
Student usernames are their email addresses.
Student passwords are set through ARS .
Any KCS employee can reset a student's password.
Student email:
Each student has an Outlook email account.
The inbox for the email account is only turned on for high schoolers.
Elementary and middle schoolers only use the email address as a user name.
The format is: s+student ID@student.knoxschools.org
EX: s123456@student.knoxschools.org
Student password:
Each student will have a generic password assigned when he/she is enrolled in KCS at the school level.
Some schools use a formulaic password for the student. This is not recommended as it is easily guessed by others.
When changing a password, help the student choose a strong one using a combination of:
At least 8 characters
Upper case letters
Lower case letters
A number and/or special character
Please check with your school colleagues to learn more about passwords at your school.
The official grade book of record is Aspen. Teachers enter grades that will be counted towards course averages. When report cards are issued, grades and attendance are pulled from Aspen.
Canvas also has a grade book to manage assignments in Canvas and provide an opportunity to give feedback. The Canvas grade book is NOT a grade book of record. Teachers may post grades there that do not count towards the course average.
Teachers can set up communication between Aspen and Canvas so that specified grades are pulled from Canvas and posted in Aspen. Please see these instructions for Grade Passback. Additional passback documents are available at KCS Help.