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 someone else should receive this newsletter by emailing Joel Selby at jselby@muskegonisd.org.

The PowerSchool Enhanced User Interface (EUI) will be deployed to all users across all districts the MAISD supports during the week of April 8th.

To support our users in this migration, the following resources are available:

• Interactive Migration Guide accessible in PowerSchool, either by clicking on the banner, or by going to the Help [?] icon in the upper-right corner and then choosing "New Interface Guide."
• Training video from PowerSchool
• Open Zoom Support Sessions
• Tuesday, April 9th - 3:00-4:00 pm - Zoom Link
• Thursday, April 11th - 11:00 am - 12:00 pm - Zoom Link
• Tuesday, April 16th - 3:30-4:30 pm - Zoom Link

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

• Family Search Page - Added a "Remove Inactive Students" button to shorten the list when attaching students with common last names.
• Student Quick Search - Links added for Enroll_Statuses (Pre-Registered, Active, Transferred Out, Graduated), Traditional Kindergarten vs Developmental Kindergarten/Young Fives, and we've named the early childhood grade levels to reflect the program instead of -4, -3, etc.)
• Modify Attendance - Added buttons to navigate between weeks.
• Attendance Overview - The legend at the bottom has been expanded to include information about when cells have a period (.) or hyphen (-).
• Teacher Schedules - The left navigation pane has been updated to show teachers who are not active but are tied to sections in the current year, as well as co-teachers who aren't the lead teacher of any section.
  
• Calculate Honor Roll and Honor Roll Methods pages have been adjusted to show more information about how the calculation actually works based on settings and GPA calculations.
• Issue-checking features have been added to check for issues with outdated GPA Calculations and Current Grade Display settings.

We're finalizing a pilot with Fruitport of updated systems for Graduation Progress & Post-Secondary Planning inside of PowerSchool. These updates were implemented in time for the 8th grade class registration process. We will be sharing more information on the pilot with Counselors, PowerSchool Functional Leaders, and other interested parties in the future.

Here's a list of the things we've been able to do in the pilot:

• Migrate to using the most recent Graduation Progress module in PowerSchool
• Separate graduation requirements by year so students have a more granular view of what they may be missing
• Make the request management process more interactive by involving students' Graduation Progress, seeing courses that are available and would satisfy the requirements specific to them, and making their post-secondary plans visible throughout the process
• Implement the use of Course Requirements that prevent students from selecting courses in PowerScheduler that they are not eligible to take based on current and previous years' grades or credits
• Use Waivers in Graduation Progress for things like Personal Curricula, Career Tech courses, etc.

• Scheduling should be well underway for 2024-25 at this point of the year. PowerScheduler has been setup for all secondary buildings and master schedules have been copied for everyone else. Please contact Joel Selby at jselby@muskegonisd.org or submit a ticket if you need assistance with scheduling.

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.

• SWIS Integration - Allows log entries in PowerSchool to be sent to SWIS.
• Enrollment/Registration - 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.
• Positive Behavior Acknowledgments - Allows teachers and admin staff to acknowledge students' positive behaviors, track data over time, and automatically notify parents and students.
• Other - Chromebook Tracking, 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