MAISD PowerSchool

The MAISD PowerSchool Support Team has created this email newsletter to keep our district contacts and stakeholders updated on current needs, future updates, and tips and tricks to make using PowerSchool more convenient and effective.

Please let us know if someone else should receive this newsletter by emailing Joel Selby at jselby@muskegonisd.org.

• Spring Break is only a week away! Make sure your school calendar is updated with those days not in session to avoid orphaned attendance records later.
• Save the Date! If you're responsible for any part of the End of Year (EOY) process, consider attending our annual PowerSchool EOY meeting, scheduled for May 13, 2025, 1:00-3:30 PM, at the MAISD. More information will be shared later. The second half of the meeting will be specifically for State Reporting/Pupil Accounting folks. Add the EOY Meeting event to your calendar with this link!

We will be hosting a training session for Ecollect Form Creation on April 15, 2025 from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM. This will be a remote meeting and recorded. The goal is to introduce the basic setup for Ecollect Forms to users so they can explore forms they might want to create. We will be looking at some more basic options, but are open to explore more in-depth training at another time. Feel free to bring examples of things you use Google Forms for now, or other suggestions you would like to explore.

We're working on adding more helpful reminders and tools throughout PowerSchool. Here are a few recent additions:

• Adds display of imported transportation fields to the top of the Student > Student Profile > Transportation page.
• Changes Active Term to a dropdown on Current Grade Display and adds a warning if there are no gradebook grades available.
• Adds several quality of life improvements to Course Sections page sidebar (Adjust width of nav panel, adds ability to hide courses without sections, and search available courses by text and cycle through them).
• Adds display of current or next Bell Schedule to admin header when enabled at the school level under MAISD Custom Preferences.
• Adds alert to top of students' Attendance Overview page if they are enrolled in any sections that are exempt from attendance calculations but have attendance records.
• Adds building-level setting to hide the Registration screen from the Student/Guardian portal for all but the high grade in the building. (request from MS)

New Staff

Be sure to notify the PowerSchool Team when new staff members are hired. New staff will be given a PowerSchool Training account and assigned the appropriate learning path. Learning paths include online courses relevant to the job the staff member will be performing. This will provide a foundation of PowerSchool knowledge. Once the online training has been completed, we suggest scheduling a one-on-one in person or virtual training with a PowerSchool team member to answer any questions and provide further instruction.

Ongoing Training

The PowerSchool Team is available to provide training to staff on an as needed basis. Please contact us to schedule training.

Throughout the School Year

The PowerSchool Team holds annual training sessions throughout the school year for elementary scheduling, beginning of the year, end of the year, and PowerSchool 101. Please contact the PowerSchool Team for dates and times. Training dates are also published in this newsletter.

• Asset Tracking - Allows admin staff/technology departments to track ownership of Chromebooks and/or other devices, as well as keep repair logs.
• Community Service - Allows staff to log community service hours for students, the total required, and keep track of the cumulative total. Information is also displayed in the Parent/Student portal.
• Positive Behavior Acknowledgments - Allows teachers and admin staff to acknowledge students' positive behaviors, track data over time, and automatically notify parents and students.
• SWIS Integration - Allows log entries in PowerSchool to be sent to SWIS.
• Enrollment Queue (Registration)/Demographic Update - Online enrollment, yearly forms and demographic info update within the Parent Portal.
• Chronic Absenteeism - Allows districts to quickly view students who have met attendance thresholds, generate attendance letters en masse, track parent meetings, and generate reports as needed.
• Accommodation Log - Allows teachers to enter accommodations offered (accepted and refused) for students with an IEP or 504 plan. The data is stored, reportable, and accessible to parents.
• Other - 31a Reporting, Online Report Cards, among others.

The PowerSchool Team can create automated jobs that integrate the flow of data between PowerSchool and third party software applications, removing the need to compile data and upload it manually.

The PowerSchool Team can write a variety of reports, including data reports, detail reports, analytical reports, and student performance reports (report cards, progress reports, transcripts).

Day to day support, secondary scheduling, standards support, and all things related to PowerSchool!

Submit a PowerSchool Helpdesk Ticket

Bill Smith, SIS Support Specialist

Joel Selby, SIS Support Specialist

Keith Jelinek, SIS Support Specialist

Heidi Strong, SIS Helpdesk

Website: https://www.muskegonisd.org/techservices/ps/
Location: 630 Harvey Street, Muskegon, MI, USA
Phone: (231) 767-0414