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1.5. PowerSchool SIS: School/District Administrator

This learning path includes recommended courses for school and district administrators who use PowerSchool SIS. Taking additional courses that aren't included in this learning path is also recommended.

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Module Description
Basics for Admin Users Part 1 This course is intended for new PowerSchool SIS admin users or experienced users who would like to brush up on the basics. In Part 1 of this three-part course, you will learn about the different groups who use PowerSchool SIS, how someone from each of the user groups signs in to PowerSchool SIS, and how to navigate the PowerSchool SIS Start Page. You will also explore common PowerSchool SIS tasks, run basic reports, and use group actions. Although some of the tasks demonstrated in this course may not pertain to your role, you can use the course to learn how to navigate PowerSchool SIS and perform basic functions.
Basics for Admin Users Part 2 This course is intended for new PowerSchool SIS admin users or experienced users who would like to brush up on the basics. In Part 2 of this three-part course, you will learn how to search for students and how to use student pages. You will explore individual student information, such as alerts and demographics, and look at student reports that you can print.
Basics for Admin Users Part 3 This course is intended for new PowerSchool SIS admin users and experienced users who would like to brush up on the basics. In Part 3 of this three-part course, you will learn how to perform basic field-level searches in PowerSchool SIS, print reports, use group actions, perform compound searches, and use other methods to obtain the appropriate selection of students.
Administration and Management (Not Recommended) This course is intended for both technical and administrative staff. Learn how to add new staff members and assign their system access. Then learn how to manage the report queue. This course also covers how to work directly with PowerSchool SIS data using Direct Database Export (DDE) and Direct Database Access (DDA). Use DDE to search for specific data, export the data, and make match selections from multiple tables. Use DDA to modify or delete data in your PowerSchool SIS database.
Security Part 1 This course is intended for both technical and instructional administrators. In the first part of this two-part course, learn how to use a dual security approach using security groups and user roles to assign and control users’ access at each school in your district. Then learn how to add security settings, assign security groups to users, modify user roles, and layer security groups and user roles to further control what users can access.
Security Part 2 This course is intended for both technical and instructional administrators. In the second part of this two-part course, learn how to add field level security and modify page permissions to manage system access for staff members. Then explore how to use IP restrictions and system passwords to control how users access PowerSchool SIS.
Setting Up District Grading Preferences In this course, district administrators learn how to set up both traditional and standards-based grading preferences at the district level in PowerSchool SIS. Administrators will learn how to apply the grading settings to schools to provide grading consistency and to save teachers time when using PowerTeacher Pro Gradebook.
Setting Up Building Grading Preferences This course is intended for technical staff or anyone who is responsible for system setup. Participants will learn how to review and update school-level settings in PowerSchool SIS that impact the use of PowerTeacher Pro Gradebook after district-level setup is complete. Learn how to set the default gradebook, review categories and calculations, update grade preferences, assign administrative access to teachers' gradebooks, assign an alternate grade scale to a student, run the Section Readiness report, and lock reporting terms.
Setting Up Standards-Based Grading This course is intended for both technical and instructional administrators in your district and individual schools. Technical administrators will learn how to set up standards in PowerSchool SIS for a school or district, import standards into PowerSchool SIS, set calculation methods for PowerTeacher Pro Gradebook, and use reports related to standards scores.
Enrolling and Transferring Students This course is intended for administrators who enroll and transfer students in your district and schools. You will learn how to enroll new students and their siblings, transfer students in and out of schools, and pre-enroll students for the next school year.
Working with Student Contacts This course is intended for PowerSchool SIS admin users at the school and district level. Administrators will learn how to manage student contacts by adding new contacts, importing contacts, modifying contact information, consolidating duplicate contacts, and by using the contacts data access tags to generate quick reports.
Managing Grades and Academic Data Part 1 This is part one of a two-part course intended for administrative and office staff who are responsible for entering and editing student academic data. Administrators and office staff will learn how to create tests and their score categories in PowerSchool SIS, as well as how to enter single test scores and import groups of scores. In addition, learn how to add information to transcripts manually for students who transfer into your school or district, how to add historical information for a single course, and how to edit historical course grades.
Managing Grades and Academic Data Part 2 This second part of a two-part course is intended for administrative and office staff who are responsible for retrieving student academic data. Administrators and office staff will learn how to review a student’s overall academic status and progress towards graduation, how to search for students based on their grades or GPA, and how to run the At Risk report to discover which students are in danger of not graduating.
Managing Staff Explore how to add, edit, and inactivate staff from your current PowerSchool SIS records. Then, learn how to gather staff email addresses, access teacher schedules, and designate a staff member as a school counselor.
Managing Students Learn how to search for at-risk students, manage student contacts, review student academic records, and use the Teacher Gradebooks, Parental Access Statistics, and Grades Distribution reports.
Managing Student Behavior and Discipline (Not Recommended) In this course, learn how to document student behavior-based events in PowerSchool SIS in two ways. First, check out how to record detailed or quick incidents about an event that involves multiple people, such as victims, offenders, reporters, and witnesses. Second, learn how to submit log entries about an individual student. Then, investigate ways to print out records created through both methods. Finally, explore how to export incident data into a spreadsheet for regional regulatory compliance reporting.
Communication Tools Part 1 When it comes to communication, use a variety of tools in PowerSchool SIS to share information effectively with students, parents or guardians, and staff members. In part one of this course, explore these tools and learn how to create your own form letters, customize mailing labels, and print reports for students.
Communication Tools Part 2 PowerSchool SIS provides a variety of communication tools that school administrative staff can use to share information effectively with students, parents or guardians, and staff members. In this final part of the course, learn how to create your own report cards, progress reports, PDFs of student schedules, and attendance letters. Then learn how to import and export report templates, set up class roster reports, and enter and edit items in the daily bulletin.
Enterprise Reports for Report Users Part 1 (Not Recommended) Explore Enterprise Reports, a set of interactive reports in PowerSchool SIS built using Application Express (APEX), Oracle's rapid application development tool. Learn how to grant access to Enterprise Reports, then explore the published reports and the reporting features available.
Enterprise Reports for Report Users Part 2 (Not Recommended) Learn how to customize Enterprise Reports by adding aggregate calculations and conditional formatting, creating pivot tables and charts, and adding calculated columns. Then learn about the Flashback and Set Current Selection features, and how to manage Enterprise Reports.
Student and Parent Portals This course is for school and system administrators responsible for teaching students and contacts, like parents and guardians, how to use the PowerSchool SIS Student and Parent Portals. Administrators learn how students and contacts sign in to the portals and to PowerSchool Mobile. Learn how students and contacts locate grade, assignment, and attendance information, how contacts receive email reports, and how students and contacts review teachers’ comments. Also, learn how to check the school bulletin, how students register for classes, and how contacts add students to their single sign-on accounts.
Setting Up Student and Parent Access This course is for school system administrators responsible for setting up the PowerSchool SIS Student and Parent Portals, PowerSchool Mobile, and student, parent, and guardian access. System administrators will learn how to activate settings, add web account access for contacts, and add students to a contact's account.
End of Term Part 1 - Verifying Grades School administrative staff responsible for the End of Term process will learn what elements to include in their End of Term process plan and how to verify teacher grades.
End of Term Part 2 - Storing Grades (Not Recommended) School administrative staff responsible for the End of Term process will learn how to use the Store Grades page to store grades in PowerSchool SIS.
End of Term Part 3 - Reporting Grades School administrative staff responsible for the End of Term process will learn how to calculate honor roll, run the Honor Roll Report, and print report cards.
Start of Year Part 1 - District and School Administration Get a head start on your Start of Year setup. This course is the first of a four-part series and covers the district and school administrative settings that you need to review and update in PowerSchool SIS before the upcoming school year begins.
Start of Year Part 2 - Scheduling and Attendance Get a head start on your Start of Year setup. This course is the second of a four-part series and covers the settings that affect scheduling and attendance that you need to review and update during the Start of Year process.
Start of Year Part 3 - Grading, Assessment, and Reports Get a head start on your Start of Year setup. This course is the third of a four-part series and covers the settings that affect grading, assessment, and reports that you need to review and update in PowerSchool SIS before the new school year begins.
Start of Year Part 4 - Student Information and Parent Access Get a head start on your Start of Year setup. This course is the fourth of a four-part series and covers the settings that affect student information, how to assign access IDs and passwords for students and parents, and how to enable access to the PowerSchool SIS Student and Parent Portals.
Lesson Planner: Getting Started for Teachers Lesson Planner, a customizable digital planner that enables teachers to streamline lesson planning and instructional delivery, is available to all Schoology Learning and PowerSchool SIS customers. In this course, learn how to set up Lesson Planner by adding classes and scheduling them on your timetable. Then, create and organize lesson plans and templates aligned to standards. Next, share lessons and receive lesson feedback. Finally, reuse content from previous years.

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