PS Teachers - Plus signs and X's on Report Cards

Click on any image in this blog to enlarge it.

Note: Once you put out these marks, parents will be able to view them on their Powerschool screens.

The procedure for putting + signs and X's on report cards 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, if you are in grades 1 - 4, select your homeroom from the list of classes, and hit the Scoresheet tab.  If you are in grades 5 - 8, you should select the actual class you are entering standards for (for example 5th grade Math, etc).   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 your 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.  If accessing the standards from your homeroom, they will start with the Personal and Social Growth Standards that appear on the left side of the report cards.  After these, the specific subject standards will appear.  If accessing the standards from a specific subject class, only the standards for that class will appear.  If you want to enter either a + or an X in a standard, right click on the cell that corresponds to the student and standard, move the mouse pointer down to Grades, slide the mouse pointer over to either the + or the X, and left click.

                      

The X will appear in the cell you selected.

If you need to see the full description of the standard, slide 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.

Calculating Yearly Grades

Since it's almost the end of the third quarter, parents are now starting to take a closer look at their children's final average, and I am starting to get inquiries about how these are calculated.

REMEMBER, the default calculation for Final Averages is set to Total Points.  This means that Powerschool will ignore any weighting that you may have used in your Quarterly Grade calculations, and will simply add all scores together, and divide by the total number of scores.

The screen below shows the initial setup in Powerschool.

If your intention is to average all 4 quarter grades together, then you need to change the grade setup.  The screen shot below shows how to set this up.  Make sure you have selected Y1 as the reporting term, and click on term weights.  The initial percentages for each term are set by dividing 100 by the number of terms, in this case 4, so all percentages are 25%.  Note : If you have terms set up for Mid Term Exams and Final Exams, those terms will also be listed.

Since the percentages are preset to 25%.  You should not have to change these.  However, If your school has separate terms set up for MidTerm Exams and Final Exams, then you will also see M1 and F1 along with Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4.  You will probably have to adjust the percentages in this case to match your grading policy.  The usual setup in this case is Q1- 20%, Q2 - 20%, M1 - 10%, Q3 - 20%, q4 - 20% and F1- 10%

Comments, Comments, Comments

Did you ever wonder where your comments go and where they can be seen by parents.  Hopefully this post will answer all of your questions.

As always, if you click on a screen image, it will be enlarged for you.  Click on the back arrow to return to normal viewing.

Let's start with the basics.  There are three places to insert comments in Powerschool. 

Teacher comments through Backpack.  From the Start Page after you log into Powerteacher, click on the backpack icon for the class you want.  Next, click on the student, and from the drop down box that appears, click on Teacher Comments.  Click on the word Edit and you will be taken to the Modify Comments page.  See Below. Here, you can enter comments, or select pre-written or canned comments.  Please note that these comments will NOT appear on progress reports or report cards.

Now, you're probably wondering where these will appear.  You can view them where you entered them.  Parents can see these comments when they click on the Teacher Comments button in their Powerschool portal.  See Below.

Teacher Assignment Comments Through Gradebook - Teacher comments can also be entered in Gradebook on either individual assignments or on Final Term Grades.  In both cases, you would right click on the grade, and click on Score Inspector.  First, we'll talk about comments on individual assignments.  See Below.

Notice that a little blue "C" appears next to the assignment grade.  You can view the comment by right clicking on the grade.  Again, please note that these comments will NOT appear on report cards or progress reports.  Parents will be able to view thes through their portal.  If a teacher has included a comment on an assignment, the assignment score will be colored blue, indicating that it can be clicked on.  See Below.

Final Term Grade Comments Through Gradebook - These are probably the most important comments you will create, since they will appear on the Progress Reports, Report Cards, and in the Teacher Comment section on the Parent portal.  To create these, right click on the final grade column for the student, and then click on the Score Inspector.  Comments can be typed in, or selectect from pre-written (canned) comments by clicking on the comments tab.

As I said earlier, these comments will appear in three places.  Progress Reports, Report Cards, and on the Parent screen.  Since they appear on both the Progress Report and Report Cards, if you enter comments for the Progress Report, you must modify or delete them before grades are permanently stored at the end of the quarter.  Failure to do so will will result in those same comments being printed on the Report Cards.  The picture below shows what the parents will see when they are in Powerschool.