On Line Grades

[Anonymous]

Does your private offer a portal for you to view your student grades. If so do you mind sharing the school and what grade your child is in. Our private does not and my daughter is in 6th grade.

[Anonymous]

I won’t say what school but our school used to and then they stopped and I think it’s for very good reason. Some parents are helicopter parents and check every single thing their poor kids do and that doesn’t allow for healthy growing and learning. If a student gets a bad test they need to be able to figure out how to do better next time. That’s part of the learning process. If your child has access, you can ask them to pull up the grade or you can check in with the school and ask for an update every two weeks or even once a month.

[Anonymous]

Former private teacher, current public and charter school parent. I too was at a school that tested an online grading system and ditched it. It caused too much panic. If there were four graded homework assignments that had been given in a term and a student missed one, his homework average might be an F. This would inevitably cause worry and waves of phone calls, whereas "You child has missing homework" emails did not inspire the same concern. Having had that experience, I try to be empathetic towards teachers when I now check online grade books. It is still hard to avoid feeling frustrated or worried when teachers get behind in grading or there is an error in what has been input into the online grade book.

[Anonymous]

Our school did in middle school, but stops for high school.

I understand why. The kids get very caught up in the immediacy of the grades, parents are overly-involved, and it's incredibly stressful for everyone.

My DC has ADHD though, and I found it really helpful, as did DC. DC's struggling with the transition to HS because of missing the portal. DC manages to write most assignments in an assignment book, but if something is mentioned at the end of class it's likely going to be missed. DC's executive planning is lacking, so after getting a grade on something where you or I might make a plan to go see the teacher, and then actually go seethe teacher, DC at most formulates half a thought that seeing the teacher would be a good idea, but it never makes it into long term memory, the plan is never acted on. DC has dropped from an A student to a B student, and from talking about it, it's almost entirely because of those sorts of challenges. Whereas if we had access to the grades, we could help be a reminder.

DC is ok with being a B student, and we're dealing with it. My concern is how to integrate executive function coaching when the tool we relied on in middle school is gone. We're encouraging DC have weekly check-ins with DC's adviser, and we'll see how that goes. From that perspective, it would have been nice to have middle school to sort some of this out. Grades matter in HS and it's rough to have to be figuring out this now, when we thought we had it sorted out.

[Anonymous]

Our private middle school does (Powerschool Haiku) and it's a godsend. For our 8th grader, I always have a view into his homework load that night. I also know how his grades are tracking. For the just-completed first semester, this knowledge was REALLY helpful in ensuring he was going to put his best foot forward for the high school application transcripts. Now that we're in the 2nd semester, we're much more relaxed about his grades. But Powerschool has been a fantastic tool for us.

[Anonymous]

Only report cards, not grades on tests or homework, though. Been that way for pre-K now up to 6th for 3 kids, 3 different schools.

[Anonymous]

My DD is a 9th grader at St. Andrew's, and the students have access to a wonderful platform called Schoology. It lists all the assignments for each course, and allows you to submit all assignments directly via Schoology. (No more worries about forgetting to turn in a paper copy of an assignment.)

Also, it posts grades for each assignment along the way. It seems very transparent and helpful. The students know where they stand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our private middle school does (Powerschool Haiku) and it's a godsend. For our 8th grader, I always have a view into his homework load that night. I also know how his grades are tracking. For the just-completed first semester, this knowledge was REALLY helpful in ensuring he was going to put his best foot forward for the high school application transcripts. Now that we're in the 2nd semester, we're much more relaxed about his grades. But Powerschool has been a fantastic tool for us.

Wow that sounds amazing. Would you share the school’s name or location?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I won’t say what school but our school used to and then they stopped and I think it’s for very good reason. Some parents are helicopter parents and check every single thing their poor kids do and that doesn’t allow for healthy growing and learning. If a student gets a bad test they need to be able to figure out how to do better next time. That’s part of the learning process. If your child has access, you can ask them to pull up the grade or you can check in with the school and ask for an update every two weeks or even once a month.

This seems silly to me. Why is this sensitive information?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I won’t say what school but our school used to and then they stopped and I think it’s for very good reason. Some parents are helicopter parents and check every single thing their poor kids do and that doesn’t allow for healthy growing and learning. If a student gets a bad test they need to be able to figure out how to do better next time. That’s part of the learning process. If your child has access, you can ask them to pull up the grade or you can check in with the school and ask for an update every two weeks or even once a month.

This seems silly to me. Why is this sensitive information?

Agreed. How could this possibly out you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our private middle school does (Powerschool Haiku) and it's a godsend. For our 8th grader, I always have a view into his homework load that night. I also know how his grades are tracking. For the just-completed first semester, this knowledge was REALLY helpful in ensuring he was going to put his best foot forward for the high school application transcripts. Now that we're in the 2nd semester, we're much more relaxed about his grades. But Powerschool has been a fantastic tool for us.

Wow that sounds amazing. Would you share the school’s name or location?

Alas, not in the D.C. area. We're in San Francisco. But I wanted to counter some of the negative points about the online assignment and grade systems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our private middle school does (Powerschool Haiku) and it's a godsend. For our 8th grader, I always have a view into his homework load that night. I also know how his grades are tracking. For the just-completed first semester, this knowledge was REALLY helpful in ensuring he was going to put his best foot forward for the high school application transcripts. Now that we're in the 2nd semester, we're much more relaxed about his grades. But Powerschool has been a fantastic tool for us.

Wow that sounds amazing. Would you share the school’s name or location?

Alas, not in the D.C. area. We're in San Francisco. But I wanted to counter some of the negative points about the online assignment and grade systems.

We have had PowerSchool at my guys' parochial school and Schoology/NetClassroom at my guy's private HS. As others have said, we keep in mind that teachers have lives and commitments and cannot always plug in grades right away - but a look once a week or once a month helped us notice when homework was getting misdirected or lost or skipped. All three of those things happened within the last 2-3 years, and yet both boys are now top of their class, and this would not have happened without both parents and kids playing a role. These are great tools.

PowerSchool used to have a function that would send me daily emails, very useful when this problem was at its peak, and i was surprised and disappointed when the grammar school disabled that function. We all talk about "executive function" but this is one of the few tools for really working with the issue, versus the lamentable "sink or swim" approach.

[Anonymous]

We used to be in a school without, and are now at Flint Hill which has everything online. So happy with this system. It helps keep child's middle school homework organized and there are no surprises.

[Anonymous]

I think the whole Diocese of Arlington uses powerschool.

I have it set to give me daily updates for my kid with ADHD, and I just check it for my other kid. Kid 2 asks about it on his own. "Can I check my math grade".
Kid 1, I send screen shots of missing work and say, "fix this,".

[Anonymous]

DS’s high school has an online system that shows assignments, tests and grades through the quarter. There is no access for parents, however, I have my son’s user name and password so that I can keep an eye on things. He has ADHD and exec functioning issues, so it has been helpful. The school, however frowns upon parents having access.