Excluding Courses from Storing a Final Grade
April 7th, 2009
Dashes dashes and more dashes!!! This is what is stored when a student is enrolled in a course that does not contain a grade. Examples of this type of course may be a Study Hall or a Title course. There is now a spot in the section where you can Exclude From Storing Final Grades. Use this feature for Sections that are not graded so blank records are not stored with final grades! To check this option click on school and sections. Click on the section number and check the box next to Exclude From Storing Final Grades. There is also a spot in the course to exclude the course from appearing on report cards/transcripts. This works well unless you are printing the class on a schedule or using the period info DAT tag. If your report card pulls stored grades I highly encourage you to check the Exclude From Storing Final Grades in the section and leave the course to appear on report cards/transcripts. This way the grade will not pull on the report card because the report card is pulling historical and there would not be a historical grade and at the same time it would appear on other reports such as student schedules! Enjoy!
Posted by Melissa Bitz in Grading | Comments Off
Calendar and Storm Days
January 20th, 2009
If you have had a storm day you will need to be sure to change your calendar!
Follow the steps below!
1) From your start page, click on School under setup.
2) Click on Calendar Setup.
3) Find the storm day, and remove the day type, schedule, In session checkbox, Membership Value, and Type. (Make is look like a Saturday/Sunday)
4) Click Submit on the botttom right hand corner of the page to save your changes.
5) You now have 179 membership days.
6) Find the date you’ll make up the storm day with and mark it like the other school days in your calendar setup.
7) Membership will be back to 180 once the make up day is entered into your calendar. 
To refresh student attendance click on special functions, attendance functions and Refresh Attendance Views Data. Be sure to run this for the whole year and for every student.
9) Double check that students have 180 by running the ADA/ADM report….Go to reports, run reports and ADA/ADM by student
Repeat this for each school on your server!!
Posted by Melissa Bitz in Attendance | Comments Off
Modifying Schedules in Premier
July 17th, 2008
Some of you may be noticing that the periods are out of order when you view the modify schedule student screen in PowerSchool Premier. There is a preference under school setup that can change this. From the start page click on school under setup. Click on preferences under the scheduling section. Change the very last drop down at the bottom of the page (Modify Schedule Enrollments) to expression instead of Course Number-Section Number.
Posted by Melissa Bitz in Scheduling | Comments Off
Changing Teachers to the Web Gradebook
July 2nd, 2008
Well we have completed a couple rounds of the migration so some of your servers have been updated to the new version of PowerSchool! Along with the Premier version comes the new PowerTeacher Web Gradebook. If you are going to have your teachers use this there is a setting that you need to change on the admin side. Keep in mind you cannot change this setting until your server has been updated! To change one teacher to the web gradebook click on staff and choose the staff member under browse staff. Click on the security settings for that staff. Mark the Web Gradebook radio button and submit.
To change it for all teachers click on staff from the start page and choose the teachers link. Click on functions under the staff list. Choose the set staff field value link. In the field to change type in the words gradebook type In the new field value box type in 1 Click Submit and Submit again.
Posted by Melissa Bitz in PowerTeacher Web Gradebook | Comments Off
Enrolling New Students for Next Year in PowerScheduler
May 5th, 2008
1. Create the 08-09 school year, duplicating the start and end dates from the scheduler side.
*Create the school year on the live side by clicking on school, years and terms, and new. Be sure to use the same start and end dates that you used in PowerScheduler.
2. Switch to the 08-09 school year in Term View
3. Enroll the student who is coming from a different District, setting the students next year grade to the same grade as their entry grade.
*So to enroll the new student go to the live side and click on special functions and enroll new student. Enter in the grade level that they will be in next year and use the first day of the 2008-2009 school year as the start date. Once you have enrolled them, click on the scheduling setup screen for that student and fill in the next year grade (which will be the same grade level you used when you enrolled them), the priority, check to schedule this student, year of graduation and next school indicator. Keep in mind since the student’s start date is in the future they have a pre-registered status in PowerSchool. If you need to pull up their screens at anytime on the live side you must type in /lastname in the search students box on the start page.
Posted by Melissa Bitz in Scheduling | Comments Off
Public Access to the PowerSchool Daily Bulletin
April 11th, 2008
Allowing Public Access to the PowerSchool Daily Bulletin
Access is granted by each school and district individually
1. Log into PowerSchool
2. Click the School or District link on the left side of the page
3. Click the Miscellaneous link
4. Check the box to allow Public Access to the Daily Bulletin
a. If access is granted at the District Office only items added to the Bulletin at the
District Office can be viewed.
Look up School Numbers
The School Number is needed if public bulletin access is granted at the individual school level
1. Change the School to District Office
2. Click the District link on the left side of the page
3. Click the Schools/School Info link
4. Note the number in the School Number column for the needed school
Add the Link
Use the following pattern when adding the link on a school web page for the public to access the daily bulletin. To make it work for your school replace demo with the correct school district name from the PowerSchool address
Link for District Office Daily Bulletin
http://demo.ps.state.nd.us/bulletin
Link for the EduTech High School Daily Bulletin
http://demo.ps.state.nd.us/bulletin/2333
Posted by Melissa Bitz in Misc | Comments Off
Teacher Comments in the Web Gradebook
March 4th, 2008
If teachers make long comments in the web gradebook the comments will run off the page when you view the comment on the quick lookup screen for a student. In order to force the text to wrap correctly have the teacher press enter so often so that it forces a break in that comment.
Posted by Melissa Bitz in PowerTeacher Web Gradebook | Comments Off
Multiple Final Grades on an Individual Progress Report in PowerGrade
November 23rd, 2007
There may be times where you want to have multiple final grades printed on the Individual Progress Report that can be printed in PowerGrade. The other day I had Nancy from Fessenden call our help desk with this question so I can not take credit for this idea to blog on this!! To add multiple final grades in the header, go to the report and by default there is a final grade code of (no spaces). Replace the * with the final grade that you would like to pull. So if you are printing a progress report at quarter 2 time and would like to print the quarter 1 final grade and the current quarter 2 grade your code may look like this:
Q1 Grade: (no spaces in the code)
Q2 Grade: (no spaces in the code)
Posted by Melissa Bitz in Grading | Comments Off
Parent Portal
October 19th, 2007
I came across this website today and thought I would share it with others. Lately we have had customers ask about a resource for parents to learn the parent portal. Here is a link to a tutorial created by Matt Freund http://www.shrewsbury-ma.gov/schools/district/helpdesk/index.asp
Posted by Melissa Bitz in Parent/Student | Comments Off
Changing the Default Student Screen
October 19th, 2007
I have been horrible about blogging this year! I apologize to any of you that keep up on this! The beginning months of school have been busy in more ways than one! Anyway I thought I would blog about something very easy today that not a lot of people pay attention to and that is how to change the default student screen that shows when you click on an individual student! Personally my favorite screen is the quick lookup screen so it may be nice to have that as the first screen that appears when I choose a student for the first time. To change this setting click on the personalize link on the home page. Choose initial student screen and click on the drop down to choose the screen and click submit! Many times administrative assistants need to work with demographics so this might be a helpful change to make so that screen comes up as the first screen!
Posted by Melissa Bitz in Misc | Comments Off