Online grade-tracking systems have become the modern District 7 student’s constant educational companion. TigerView used to be the dominant system for District 7, until the district switched to PowerSchool near this school year. While the new system features valuable assets for teachers, some students have encountered issues.
Among those missing the retired program is senior Kirra Reed. For her, the switch was more than an unwelcome change.
“Because of having to switch to PowerSchool, my dad wasn’t able to login and register me properly,” Reed said. “ … I was told that I couldn’t come back to school until that registration was properly taken care of. I was out for a week before we got everything situated.”
Reed’s father is a truck driver and couldn’t be home to help resolve the situation. She said the switch to PowerSchool made it all the more confusing.
Senior Cooper Turner also had trouble logging in to the new system. He can only access his grades through his parents’ portal.
“I don’t even know if I have a fully set-up account,” he said.
A Schoology survey of 285 students showed that 84.4% think TigerView was more user-friendly and easier to navigate than PowerSchool, and 87.4% think TigerView was easier to set up.
Turner feels that TigerView had “all the same stuff just better.” He dislikes PowerSchool’s user-interface and lack of a weekly calendar feature, which he said was helpful for staying organized when he was absent.
Reed said a usable grade-tracking system is more important than people might think.
“It is very important to have a functioning grade program because there are many students that like to keep up with their grades, attendance and teacher’s commentary,” she said.
According to senior Ella Sedabres, PowerSchool is geared toward the wrong group.
“I dislike that PowerSchool has more accessible options for parents than students, as they are our grades,” Sedabres said.
Some students have found positives. Freshman Blake Chrenka said he misses TigerView’s easy navigation, but he appreciates that PowerSchool shows him his percent of attendance.
“I think TigerView is easier to access, but I have been using it my whole life,” he said.
Physics teacher Marvin Allen views the change in an even more positive light. He said PowerSchool is better suited to help kids who need learning accommodations.
“In both systems we would get medical alerts, meaning I could know if you were allergic to something,” he said. “With PowerSchool I still have that, but I also have those learning documents that some kids have, such as IEPs and 504s.”
Those documents are visible each time Mr. Allen takes attendance or looks at a seating chart. He said this feature reminds him what each student needs and how he can help them learn.
“Under the old system, I’d have to constantly be going back to my email and looking through all the names and trying to match people with classrooms. Here, it’s all sorted for me, so I’ve really, really liked that,” he said. “That’s sort of been my favorite tool so far.”