Tuesday, October 27, 2009

PS Teachers - Overriding Grades and Entering Report Card Comments

Overriding Final Grades and Adding Report Card Comments
(Double click on any image to make it larger, then click the back arrow to return to the post)

You may have a need to manually change a grade that was calculated by Powerschool.  You may also want to add comments that will appear in the comments section on the student report cards.  For both processes, you will have to access the Score Inspector from Gradebook.  The following images show in detail how to perform these functions.

After determining which student you want, right click on that student's final grade.  (See image below)  You should then click on Show Score Inspector.



In the image below, you will see that the Score Inspector box for the Q1 Final Grade has appeared.  In it, you can manually override a grade, enter report card comments, or do both.  Once you are finished, simply click on the close button.



To manually override a grade, click on the box next to the words Manual Override, so that a check mark appears.  By doing this, the Percent and Grade fields which were greyed out now appear in black, and can be changed.  Make sure that you change both the percentage and grade. 

If you want to enter report card comments, you can click in the comment box and start typing.  Please remember that only comments written here will appear on report cards.  You can also access "canned" comments by clicking on the Comment tab right above the Manual Override check box.  Only comments entered under Final Grade will appear on the report card.  Comments entered under an individual assignment can be viewed by parents through their Powerschool access.  For grades K - 4, all comments should be entered under Homeroom.  For grades 5 - 8, comments should be entered in each individual class, including Special classes.

After you click close, you will notice that a small red dot with and exclaimation point will appear in the Final Grade box for the student, if you manually overrode the grade.  If you entered comments for the student, a small blue dot with a "c" in it will also appear.


One question that I am always asked when I tell teachers about the override process is, "Will the parents see something that tells them that the grade was changed?"  The answer is NO.

Friday, October 16, 2009

PS Teachers - Entering Kindergarten Grades

Click on any image in this blog to enlarge it.

Note: Once you put out these grades, parents will be able to view them on their Powerschool screens.
Also, you should follow the same quarters as the rest of the school, so when you enter grades and comments for the first time in January, you should be entering them in the second quarter.

The procedure for entering report card grades for Kindergarten has changed. You must go into Gradebook to do this now. Once you are in Gradebook, click on the Tools tab, and select "Preferences". The box below will appear, and you should click on the Standards tab. Insure that the box next to Display Standards and other Measures in Final Score Mode is checked.




Next, select your homeroom from the list of classes, and hit the Scoresheet tab. Once you are on the Scoresheet, click on the Final Grades tab (big red arrow points to it), and all of the standards should appear in a way similar to the way assignments appear in Gradebook. Not seeing the Final Grades button?  Check your screen resolution.  It should be 1024 x 768 or higher.  The first standard is Citizenship, which you can skip, since we don't use it. The rest of the standards should appear in the order that they appear on the report cards.  To enter a grade, right click on the cell that corresponds to the student and standard, move the mouse pointer down to Grades, slide the mouse pointer over the grade you wish to assign, and left click.  Check below the next image for a time saving tip.





TIME SAVING TIP (Fill Scores)

If all or most of your students will be receiving the same grade for a standard, you can use the fill score function in Powerschool.  To do this, right click on the standard (blue or green box) at the top of each column.  After you do this, a selection box will open up.  Left Click on the selection "Fill Scores", and the Fill Scores box opens up.  Click on the down arrow next to "Grades" and the drop down box containing all possible letter grades opens up.  Left click on the Grade you want to assign to everyone in the class for the selected standard.  (In this case I selected "S")
 


You will see below that all students received an "S" for the selected standard.  If you need to go back and change any student's grade to anything other that the score you filled the column with, right click on the cell, and select a different grade.



If you are not sure which standard you are working on, you can see the full description of the standard by sliding the mouse pointer over the standard box (green or blue) at the top of each column, and the full description will appear in a yellow box.



Thursday, October 8, 2009

PS Teachers - Creating Class Descriptions for Parents using Class Content


NOTE : YOU CAN DOUBLE CLICK ON ANY OF THE IMAGES IN THIS POST TO SEE A LARGER VIEW OF THEM.

The section description that the parent sees in Powerschool comes from the description that the teacher enters under Class Content in Gradebook.  To create a section decription, click on the Class Content tab at the top of your Gradebook.  Remember to insert the line break command (the less than symbol, br, and the greater than symbol) every place you want to start a new line.  This area is typically used for general class messages, but can be used for posting students' homework.  If you do choose to list homework assignments here, we recommend leaving previous nights' homework out here for about a week so that those that were absent have a way of looking at homework they missed.  The bottom part of the description contains the code generated when you add an internet link.  There is no need for you to type this.  I discuss inserting links in the next section of this blog.




If you have a homework site or blog that you want to direct people to, the slide below shows you how to include an internet link in your message.  Once you click on the grey button (+ Link) underneath the word Description it will open a box like the one below, and you can add the internet address, and an english description of the site you are sending them to. 



This is what the parents will see when they go to look at their child's grades for your class.  Notice that the English Description that you typed for your internet link, not the actual internet address is displayed in blue.  This can be clicked by the parent to get to the site you are directing them to.



The Teacher Comments and Assignment Description will be addressed in a later blog.