Hey everybody, here are the things you will need to do to finish up with grades this term. 
 
1. Enter all grades in PowerGrade. 
 
2. Enter Character Development scores: 
    a. Log in to PowerSchool Teacher 
    b. Click the backpack icon for Bible 
    c. Click any student's name 
    d. Use the Select screens popup menu to select Final Grade Entry (Standards) 
    e. Enter values in the Q4 column & click submit 
    f. Click another student's first name to continue (clicking the first name will maintain the Final Grade Entry screen) 
    g. Complete this for each student 
 
3. Verify that all grades are correct – see Grade Verification Procedure outlined below 
 
 
If you have any problems logging in to PowerSchool Teacher to complete the steps listed above please contact me. 

Posted by: David Martens

One of the issues your administrators have had for a very long time is being able to tell when you have completed entering grades in PowerGrade and knowing for sure that the grades we see on the server are those you see on your computer. This PowerSchool customization is designed to help us automate this process. The idea is once you have completed entering grades in PowerGrade you log on to PowerSchool Teacher and compare the grades you see there with those on your computer. The new screens in PowerSchool teacher show you the grades on the server, the last time you updated the server from PowerGrade, and give you a checkbox to check that you have verified everything. 
 
Here is the procedure you will follow: 
 
1. Finish entering grades and any comments in PowerGrade. (Elementary teachers remember all comments that you want to appear in the Cumm folder go in the Bible subject area and you must also enter the information in Character Development) 
 
2. Log on to PowerSchool Teacher. 
 
3. For each period/subject click on the Verify Grades image.    
 
4. Compare the grades you see listed with those you have in PowerGrade. You can click on a students final grade to display assignment detail. 
 
   5. If all grades are correct place a check in the box labeled "I verify that these grades and comments are correct". The current date is automatically placed in the text box. 
 
6. If there are issues do not place a check in the box until the problems have been resolved. You can attempt to solve the problem yourself by following the suggestions below. You will need to refresh the verification window to display any changes (it can take several minutes for changes in PowerGrade to be fully populated on the server). If you cannot solve the problem yourself do not check the verification box and place a brief comment in the text box instead of the date. 
 
7. As you submit your verification pages the icons will change on the initial teacher screen to indicate your verified courses. The icons are: and  
 
8. Once your grades are verified using this procedure do not make changes in PowerGrade until given the "all clear" by your administrator. 
 
 
Several things to try if you find problems: 
 
1. Compare the last update date with the last time you worked in PowerGrade. If these are different you may have been working off line the last time you entered grades. Make sure PowerGrade is online, open each class and click save. PowerGrade should then update the server. 
 
2. Try forcing PowerGrade to update the server. PowerGrade uses several cues to tell if it needs to send information to the server. One of the major things it looks for as a cue is a change in the final grade. Any time one student's final grade changes PowerGrade will update all student grades to the server. Change one assignment for one student in such a way as to dramatically alter the final grade (i.e. from A to A- or B). (At the end of term it can be tricky to find one assignment that will affect the final grade in this way. I generally find a major test and change the grade to a 0.) Save in PowerGrade and the server will also be updated. Now you can change the assignment back to the correct grade and save again. 

Posted by: David Martens

I've been working on a couple of custom screens for PowerSchool Teacher. I can't take credit for them since they were downloaded from the PowerSchool Users Group (thanks Roger, David, Jason, and Bob!). They really offer some pretty cool new functions in PowerSchool Teacher. 
 
The first customization is called the Magic Dot. It allows you to verify easily that the attendance you took for your class really did get posted to the server. This has been an issue in past years – Submitting attendance in PowerGrade, but it just disappearing in never-never land and never getting posted to the server. 
 
With this new customization, you can simply log into PowerSchool Teacher and you will see a little dot by the attendance icon. The dot will be green if attendance is successfully posted to the server and white if it has yet to be posted. No more waiting to hear from the secretary about missing attendance! Remember, you can take attendance right from PowerSchool Teacher as well. 

Posted by: David Martens