The photos must be in a single file, not different files for different grades or schools.

Once you have this information, please mail the CD to:
EduTech
Attn: Melissa Bitz
415 Winter Show Rd
Valley City, ND 58072

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 12:47 PM

January 31, 2007

Calculating Class Rank

Now is the time when schools are doing their class rank. If you click on school, class rank, and recalculation frequency you can tell the system how often you want the class rank updated. A good rule of thumb…Before you run your class rank come to this same screen and click on recalculate now! Many schools are making grade changes and that doesn’t automatically update the class rank unless you go and recalculate now. If you have it set to daily that class rank will not be updated until the next day and if you have after storing grades chosen it will not get updated until the next time you store grades. So to be safe go to school, class rank, recalculation frequency and recalculate now!!

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 10:12 AM

October 2, 2006

Quick way to “eye ball” information for a student…for Data Mining Gurus!

I learned this little tip at PowerSchool University in San Francisco this last summer and thought I would share it with you! I thought it was really cool and it can save you some time when you are looking at student information.
Here is a great example on how useful this tip can be…..Many times when a new student comes into your district you have just enough time to enter in only the information that is required on the “enroll new student” screen. Then by the time you go back to that student to enter in more information you have forgotten what or what you have not entered in. You find yourself clicking on 10 different screens to see what needs to be filled in. To quickly see the student’s information that has been filled in or needs to be filled in, choose the student from the home page. Right click on any of the student links (for example right click on demographics) and choose open in new window. The window opens up displaying just that 1 page for that student. In your url you will see frn= and then a number. For example frn=001151. Change the frn to mcr and it will take you to the page that displays the record for the student in DDE. Now you have a view of all of the student fields and what they contain and can note which fields need to be filled in or changed! ****Note: I was using Internet Explorer when displaying these steps.****

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 9:04 AM

May 2, 2006

Changing The Length of Terms Or The Length Of Classes

Changing the term of a class does not correctly change the dates of enrollment for students. Example; It is 1 week after school starts and you notice that you have a teacher scheduled to teach S1 of psychology and that psychology class should have actually been an S2 class instead of an S1 class. S1 runs from 8/16/2006-1/16/2007. You go into the section of psychology and change the term from S1 and S2. Everything looks good until you look at the entry date and exit date for a student in that section. Their entry date will now be 1/16/2007 and their exit date will be 1/16/2007 as well. Changing the length of a class will change the entry date but will not change the exit date. All enrollment records are stored in the CC table in DDA. The exit date for this section will need to be changed here. To do this, click on school, sections, and the course. Click on the section that you changed and at the very bottom there will be a section id number. Write this number down. Change your url so that you can access DDA. If you are not familiar with DDA please call the EduTech helpdesk. DDA is the backend of the database where modifications can be made and major damage could be done if you do not know exactly what you are doing!
1. In DDA choose the CC table.
2. Search for the section id within the CC table.
3. View the records to be sure they are the correct ones.
4. Click modify records.
5. From the drop down choose the date left field.
6. Type the new leave date in the box to the right and submit.

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 10:51 AM

April 25, 2006

Making a Backup of PowerGrade To The Local Machine

I apologize that I have not been keeping up on this in the past couple of weeks! The ND PowerSchool Users Group is tomorrow and I am so excited to share some trouble shooting tips and tricks and how to do’s with you. Today I would like to share one of them with you that I will be sharing at the conference as well. All of the other ideas I discuss at the users group will be blogged sometime next week! At this time of the year teachers may tend to become a little bit nervous about their gradebooks and they want to be sure things are backed up. PowerGrade does send a backup to the server every time you close the application, however a teacher can make their own backup to their local machine. To do this, on a PC open the C drive, program files, and PowerGrade. On the Mac navigate to the applications folder. Copy both the data file and the data resource file. Make a folder on your machine called backup or whatever you would like to name it. Place the data file and data resource file in that folder. Now when you make changes to the original data file it will not affect the copied one. If you lose data at some point you can always go back to the backup that you made and retrieve that data. I would backup once a week if possible.

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 2:17 PM

April 3, 2006

Exporting Honor Roll Records

Many of you are running the honor roll report but want only the student name and honor roll level listed without the GPA. I have talked to some schools that actually take this report and retype it so they have only the name and level to submit to the local paper. There is a much easier way to get this information to save you time! Export out the honor roll records by clicking on system and DDE (Direct Database Export). Select the Honor Roll table. From the search box select StoreCode = Q3(or the appropriate store code) and yearid = 15(which stands for the 2005 school year…next year it will be 16). Check the box to search only in high school. Once the search is done, view the selection to make sure you have the correct information. Go back and click on export. Type in [students]lastfirst, press enter. From the drop down select grade_level, level and any other field that you would like for the report. Click on submit and save this to desktop. Open this file with excel and sort accordingly.

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 9:54 AM

February 24, 2006

Attendance Not Synching with PowerGrade & I’m Outta Here!!!

Well this will be the last Bitz of PowerSchool until the week of March 6th. My family and I will be chilling with Mickey Mouse at Disney World next week so I will be back in the office the week of the 6th. This week I would like to share with you a known attendance issue that you may or may not be aware of. Currently there is a problem with attendance synching with PowerGrade. This happens when attendance is entered on the administrative side of PowerSchool. The code that is entered on the admin side is not getting pushed out to PowerGrade properly. The only workaround Apple has for this right now is to have the teachers choose utilities in PowerGrade and synchronize with server. Choose to synch the attendance.

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 1:02 PM

February 13, 2006

Other uses for Object Reports?????

Most commonly object reports are used for transcripts and elementary report cards. Did you know that you can also create envelopes using object reports? Perhaps you have your logo next to your return address on your school envelopes. You can create your own envelopes in PowerSchool. If you have your school logo on your envelope simply import that logo (in a jpeg format) into your site by clicking on reports, report setup and pictures. Then create your envelope by clicking reports, report setup, and object reports. Click new and change the page size to the appropriate envelope size! Use the picture object and text object to pull in the information!

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 12:05 PM

January 29, 2006

Sharing PowerGrade Reports

Teachers can create their own reports in PowerGrade, but you can also copy reports to all PowerGrade users. If your district has created standard reports for teachers or teachers in your district want to share what they have created with other teachers they can be shared via the administrative side of PowerSchool. Click on system, PowerGrade settings and PowerGrade reports. Choose the report template and submit.

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 7:20 PM

January 13, 2006

Generating a list of Students/Failing Grades

Do you want a list of students who have received D’s or F’s in S1 classes? There is the search by grades/attendance function, but this only gives you the students meeting those criteria or displays the students and matching sections. You still must click on each student to see which class received which grade. Once you store grades you can export the grades out of the stored grades table. Here is an example on how you could export a list of students who received a D or an F in a semester 1 class. It would list their name, grade level, the name of the course, and the grade they received in the course.
Click on System. Click on DDE. Choose the stored grades table from the drop down. In the next drop down choose store code, then the = sign and type S1.From the next drop down choose grade, then the >= sign and type D. If you are searching within that school only, check the box and search all records in the table. If you are a school that has previous years data you will need to narrow the search down even further by clicking in the drop down under search stored grades and and choose term id, then the >= sign and type 1500. Then click search within the current records only. Click export records and enter the following:
[students]lastfirst
[students]grade_level
course_name
Grade
Click submit. Save the file and open with Excel

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 1:04 PM

January 5, 2006

Entering 1 Final Grade For A Class Using PowerSchool Teacher

Did you know that you can use PowerSchool teacher to enter 1 final grade for a class? This is very useful for those administrators out there who are entering in ITV scores! Here are the steps you need to complete this task. Because you will be entering the final grade through PowerSchool teacher you must have a username and password to access PowerSchool teacher.
Next the final grade entry function must be enabled on the administrative side by clicking on school and final grade entry options. Click on traditional grading and enable the final letter grade entry. ***Note you can also view an atom built on setup for final grade entry at http://nd.atomiclearning.com.
Once traditional grade entry has been enabled, log into PowerSchool teacher and click on the backpack next to the class you want to enter grades for. Choose a student and from the drop down choose final grade entry (traditional). Enter the grade and submit. Repeat this process for the remaining students.

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 3:24 PM

December 15, 2005

ND PowerSchool Atomic Learning Atoms

Do you have questions on how to do certain tasks in PowerSchool? If so check out the North Dakota atomic learning site at http://nd.atomiclearning.com Click on the PowerSchool link and view tutorials on such things as changing attendance, entering standards grades, and retrieving backups for PowerGrade.

Posted by Melissa Bitz at 3:08 PM

November 30, 2005

Current Grade Display

Remember at the beginning of a term, after storing grades, to adjust your Current Grade Display so the Quick Lookup Screen shows current data.
To adjust the Current Grade display , go to School and choose Current Grade Display. Change the former term to Historical and make sure the current term is pulling from PowerGrade. In the Current Grade Dsplay text box under the term list, make sure that the current term is being used. Example: Change Q1 to Q2.

Posted by Don Simon at 2:32 PM

November 16, 2005

Welcome to PowerSchool Success!

EduTech would like to welcome you to the PowerSchool Success blog, a resource that will help ensure success with PowerSchool in your school. Visit often for answers to common questions, tips, tricks, and more.

Posted by Web Developer at 11:20 AM