Troubleshooting

The RCPS Schoology Teacher Training Course is a great place to start and has modules for every topic related to Schoology’s features. Click here to learn more about the Course and how to enroll.

You may also want to check out our RCPS Schoology support page, which is another excellent starting point. You’re also welcome to contact any ITRT directly through email, or you can submit a ticket using our middle school and high school forms.

For technical issues (such as a student not being in a course or a course not matching between PowerSchool and Schoology), please put in a help ticket.

First, make sure you are trying to login to Schoology at http://schoology.rockingham.k12.va.us.

Access to Schoology is determined by PowerSchool. If you do not have a PowerSchool account, there is a form your administrator can complete requesting access for you. Once you have that access, you should be able to access Schoology (but it will probably be overnight before you're added to Schoology).

Yes! You can reorder your courses. Click here for a quick demo

You can add an image to your course profile by clicking on your Course, then going to the graphic in the upper left hand corner, above Course Options, and hovering over it. You will get an option to Edit Picture. Click on Edit Picture, you can select from the graphics available or you can Attach a File. (You can use Pixabay to access copyright free, attribution free photos and graphics.)

Note: If your classes are linked, you will only be able to choose one graphic for ALL of your linked courses.

If multiple course sections have the same course number in PowerSchool, you can link them. This saves a few steps when you create new materials. You still have the option to publish an assignment to just one section, and you can customize due dates for the different sections. The one thing that isn’t possible with linked sections is having a shared (ungraded) discussion between the sections. 

In order to successfully link your sections:

• The sections must be within the same Course (In My Courses, the sections are listed vertically under the same Course Name)

• The sections must be associated with the same grading period.

• Enrollment must be unique across the linked sections.  There cannot be any overlap in the students/members.

• The sections must have the same Course Admin (co-teacher(s) must be temporarily removed to allow linking, then they can return to Admin status)

If the above criteria are met and you still cannot link your sections, please submit a Technology Help Desk Ticket.

As an individual teacher, you may choose not to use resources often. You can always make things in your courses. It's a workflow preference. (Some people prefer to always build in Resources and then put things in their courses. That's also fine.)

However, there are a couple of times you would want to use resources.

1. If you want to share Schoology things with other teachers, you'll need to send things to resources and then put them in a collection so that you can share.

2. You'll also probably want to put your courses in resources at some point so that you can reuse things that you've made this semester in the future. (In your course, next to the add materials button, click on the Options tab, and choose Send Course to Resources.

3. If you make things like rubrics, they are easiest to make in resources first so that you can easily find them and attach them to assignments.

Student teachers first need a PowerSchool account, which has to go through your administration. Here is the Google Form an administrator can use to get that process started.

Once the student teacher has an account, they can access Schoology, join your course through the code, and then you can make them an admin in your course under your Members tab.

If you are using the Google Drive Assignments app to distribute assignments and have a collaborating/student teacher in your class, you will also need to go into your Google Drive, find the Schoology Google Drive Assignments folder for that class, and share that folder with the collaborating teacher.

Watch this video to see how to add another teacher to Schoology and grant Google Drive access to your collaborating/student teachers.

To access Course Materials from a previous Course, those materials will need to be in your Resources.  Once they are in Resources, you can add them into your current Courses. 

At the end of the school year, you can save your course materials to Resources by completing the following steps.

1. Click into the Course 

2. At the top of the Materials page, click Options

3. From the drop-down menu, choose Save to Resources

If you need to find course materials from an archived/previous course, following these steps:

1. Click on the Courses tab on the Navigation Bar

2. Click on My Courses in the top right corner (smaller blue font)

3. Click on the Archived tab at the top of the page

4. Click into the course with your materials

5. At the top of the Materials page, click Options

6. From the drop-down menu, choose Save to Resources

Click here to watch a video demonstrating how to save your materials to Resources.

If you want to quickly see the visibility/publish status of your materials for students, you can follow these directions.

1. Click into a Course

2. Under the Profile Image, click Course Options

3. Choose View Course As

4. Choose a student's name (if this is a linked Course, then select the section then a student's name)

5. After viewing the Course as this student, click on Back to Course to leave this student's view.

If you would like to have a demo student so that you can see the student side and test things beyond what the view above provides, you can complete this form to request a demo student account. Use this document for more information about how to use your demo student account once you have access.

By default, Schoology does not access Google files as easily as it accesses Microsoft files, PDFs, and media files. Google files will be greyed out when choosing to "Add a File".  To access Google files in Schoology, you must use the Google Drive Resources app or the Google Drive Assignments app.

Here's a good rule to follow:

• Use Add File for all Microsoft files (Docs, Excel, PowerPoint, PDFs, Image files (PNG, JPEG), Movie files (.mp4)

• Use Google Drive Resource App or Google Drive Assignments App for Google files (Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Drawings)

• Use Google Assignments (external tool) to make a digital copy of Google Jamboard files for each student

 Please try these troubleshooting steps, in this order.

1. Do not click LINK ACCOUNT at the END of the creation process. When you initially click "Google Assignments" to create, a pop-up window appears to confirm your Google account. You will need to link your Google account here at the beginning. But after you have titled the assignment, attached the file, and clicked Create, another pop-up window appears. DO NOT CLICK THIS. It will automatically cancel your assignment. 

2. Clear your Cache and Cookies. In case there is something floating around your account to create this loop, try clearing your browser's cache and cookies with these steps:

   • Click on the three dots in the top right corner

   • Choose More Tools

   • Select Clear Browsing History

   • You may choose to keep your browsing history, but click the checkboxes to clear your Cookies and your Cache for ALL TIME

3. Log out of other Google accounts. Just to be sure, make sure you log out of any other Google accounts that might be floating around your RCPS Google Account. You can go to If you do not do this already, I highly recommend using the People option on your Chrome browser to keep your logins separate. I'm only mentioning this step to eliminate variables; I feel like it's the cache and cookies that will make the biggest difference.

From Kami's Support Page:

"You can see your students' work before they turn their work in. When you send your students a Kami Assignment from Schoology, a shared copy of their work will appear in the 'Shared with me' folder in your Google Drive."

Schoology now offers integration with Performance Matters.  If you would like to create, assign, and grade a Performance Matters assessment in Schoology, then you should use the Common Assessment course material.  For more information on the full process (and student view of the Common Assessment), click here to see Schoology's Help Center article "Delivering Performance Matters Assessments through Schoology"

 Under Grade Setup, then Final Grade Settings, make sure that the following is checked in Visibility Settings:

• Hide overall grade in student grade report

• Hide grading period grades in student grade report

Be sure to Save the settings. You will need to do this for each of your courses UNLESS your courses are linked.

Since Schoology and PowerSchool need to be on the same page, so to speak, when it comes to transferring grades, there are a few requirements for a smooth sync.  Check the general list of requirements for grade syncing to make sure all of these criteria are met for the assignments/assessments with error messages.

1. The title must be 50 characters or less (including spaces).

2. The title only contains letters and numbers, no special characters or punctuation.

3. The assignment/assessment has a due date within the grading period range.

4. The assignment/assessment has a category.

For assignments that will not sync changes: Sometimes an assignment that previously synced with PowerSchool will not update with the Sync Changes button.  Try going into PowerSchool and deleting the assignment here, then go back to Schoology and sync the assignment again.

Please be aware that it may take a longer time for Schoology to sync grades to PowerSchool due to the high demand for both systems. After syncing, it may take several hours or even overnight before grades appear in PowerSchool.

If the list of criteria above is met and the sync is still unsuccessful after 24 hours, please contact our Technology Help Desk for more specific support.

Linking sections in Schoology can save a lot of time and hassle, but it does require teachers to use some of the features a bit different.  Check out this resource "How to use linked sections" to see how to assign work, grade the materials, and see grades in the Gradebook.

Teachers post many great links, websites, assignments, discussions, and assessments in Schoology.  However, there are certain rules that allow (or prevent) these activities from showing in the Upcoming or Overdue list.

For a Course Material to appear as Upcoming, it must have a due date (external links and apps will not have a due due option).  Upcoming activities/assignments will appear on the home page's Recent Activity and within a Course's side panel.

For a Course Material to appear as Overdue, it must meet ALL of the following criteria:

• Course material is published (viewable to students)

• Grading is enabled with a submit option (external links and tools, such as Google Assignments and Nearpod, do not have a submit button within Schoology)

• Submissions are not locked

• Assigned with a grading Category

To remove the Overdue label on an assignment, assessment, or discussion board, you can do any one of the following:

• Manually add a grade to an assignment

• Mark the assignment as Excused or Missing (an Incomplete marker will still appear as Overdue)

• Disable submissions for the assignment

Learn more about this at Schoology's Help Center “How do parents and student receive overdue notifications?”

It is important to know that notifications can only be determined by the user. This means that each teacher and student might have his/her own preference for notifications. There are no "global settings" for all users.

To access notifications, click on the profile picture in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Then, click Settings. Then, click the Notifications tab. Students can then customize their settings. Here is a set of minimum email notification recommendations. Note the blue box to the right of the settings list. Students can use this feature to send notifications to their phones via text message.

In Rockingham County, we have a paid subscription to Schoology, so you will need to go to our specific website to access Schoology.  

Go to the website http://schoology.rockingham.k12.va.us and login with your RCPS Google login information. You are already enrolled in the courses that match your PowerSchool record.  There is no need to ask your teacher for a Join Code.

Updates is a section of your course, in which your teacher may choose to share classroom information and important upcoming dates.  You will see these Updates from all of your Courses on your Schoology Home Page when you first login.  You can also find them within a specific Course (on the left side navigation, click on Updates) to see the messages just about this Course.

Click here to read and see more about Updates in Schoology for Students.

If you are receiving the "Access Denied" message, check out this document to see a series of steps you can try to resolve this issue.

For other Google Drive Assignments app troubleshooting or error messages, check out Schoology's Support Page.

Although it is hard to say with 100% certainty what's causing the issue, one of these two troubleshooting steps usually fix this issue. 

Clear your Browsers Cache and Cookies

1. Click on the three dots in the top right corner

2. Choose More Tools

3. Select Clear Browsing History

4. You may choose to keep your browsing history, but click the checkboxes to clear your Cookies and your Cache for ALL TIME

Remove your User from the Chromebook

1. Sign Out of the account on your Chromebook

2. On the Chromebook sign-in screen, select the profile you want to remove

3. Next to the profile name, select the Down arrow

4. Select Remove this user

5. In the box that appears, select Remove this user

6. When prompted, sign back into your RCPS Google Account

Click here to watch how to open, complete, and turn in your Google Drive Assignments.

1. Click into an Assignment that the teacher created using the Google Drive Assignments app.

2. Click on the My Document tab.

3. In the top, right corner, click on the statement Can't see your documents? Click here.

4. You will be prompted to click Connect and log in again to their RCPS Google accounts.

There are two methods for turning in a Google document in Schoology. Begin by clicking on the Submit Assignment button on the right side of the assignment's description.  Then choose one of teh following options:

1) You can click on Resources to access the Google Drive Resources app.  This will let you access your Google Drive from within Schoology.  Choose your document by placing a check next to the file and then choose import.  (For more specific directions with images, click here.)

2) You can click on Create to copy/paste a shareable link to your Google document.  First, from your Google document, you'll need to click on "Share" and copy the link so that anyone in RCPS with the link can view.  Second, in the Create option for submitting, click the link icon to paste your link.  (For more specific directions with images, click here.)

The only way to remove an Overdue notification is to submit the assignment.

If there is nothing to officially submit (perhaps you already completed the assignment on another website), try these steps below.

1. click Submit

2. click Create

3. type "I'm done"

4. click Submit