-PowerSchool Comes to Kean

by Malita Baron

Ms. Bump uses the Powerschool Program

Our PowerSchool program was implemented at the beginning of the school year of 2012. This PowerSchool system will allow parents, administrators, students and teachers to access a child’s school records. It will also tell anyone who’s authorized about the child’s attendance, participation level, classes, schedules, and after-school activities.

“The main advantage of this PowerSchool program is it can be used all over because it is web based,” according to Mr. Lorenzo Daniel, Kean High School’s Computer Operator. “It could also be used over the phone once there is internet connection available. Teachers could access it at home most times [even holidays].”

Parents also will soon be able to see their children's records by using passwords which are the students’ ID number,” according to Mr. Daniel.

This program could influence students to pay more attention to their school work and participate more at school; they won’t skip classes because their parents would find out since the PowerSchool program includes attendance records.

One parent said, “ I would like to know about my child's school life.”

So when will the parents get access to the program? “We are looking at the parents’ portal, so we could say that the parents would gain access to the program by January 2013,” said Mr. Daniel.

“I think its working out well,” said Ms. Carla Smith Todman, the Student Information System Manager and PowerSchool Administrator for St. Thomas and St. John. “There are still teachers who are finding problems. We are better off than we expected to be.”

The PowerSchool system costs about $1 million over five years, according to Ms. Smith Todman.

“ I think the Department of Education is moving towards the use of technology in as many ways as it can,” said Ms. Amy Roberts, a teacher at the Ivanna Eudora Kean High School “It’s a bit tricky to learn, but once it’s up, it makes calculating grades much easier.

Ms. Roberts also pointed out a problem. “The Department of Education, without consulting classroom teachers, built in certain restrictions in the grading system. For example, homework assignment are given a certain ‘weight’ and are limited to only 10% of the grade. For an Advanced Placement class where students are expected to complete an hour of homework a night, this is unfair because all that work only counts for only 10% of their grade.”

Ms. Roberts said, “The weighing system does not work for every class; different courses demand different things for the students, and the cookie cutter approach to grading isn't effective.”

Some teachers don't like the system for other reasons. According to a female teacher at the Ivanna Eudora Kean High School, “ I think they made this program to monitor what the teachers are doing in the classrooms.”