Every day we use PowerSchool. It’s a great way for students to check their grades, as well as a way for parents to keep track as well. It is also an easy way for students, or parents, to be able to connect with their teacher if there are any concerns regarding their grades. There is a downfall with PowerSchool though, by causing stress and frustration to students, parents, and even teachers. 

With PowerSchool, students get anxious waiting for their grades to come in. They may wonder how that one grade could affect them overall. I too feel anxious awaiting a grade when I know I may have not done the best or there is nothing I can do to improve it. Students spend every minute checking their PowerSchool for a grade to come in, causing them to lose focus in their class and causing more stress as the minutes go by. After you get a bad grade, you may get in trouble when you get home because now parents can also have PowerSchool. This can cause even more stress knowing that you’re going to get punished as soon as you get home.

Teachers have problems with PowerSchool as well. When they put in grades, there is a lot of room for errors by them or the computer. This could cause stress to a teacher because they may have a lot of students or parents emailing them about a grade. Teachers easily get frustrated with already having a heavy workload; now they have to deal with a hundred emails regarding how they grade and any errors that they have made. Even with this, teachers still experience more frustration if someone gets mad at them for not putting in the grade right away. They may be busy or simply PowerSchool is down and they can’t enter anything in.

Even though PowerSchool has its weaknesses, there are also positives with it. If a teacher were to accidentally put in the wrong grade, students can tell them so that their true grade goes into the grade book. This helps teachers out because they are constantly putting in grades and cannot always check to make sure it is always correct. Students can also see if they are struggling with any type of material that they are learning by seeing their grades. With this, students are able to ask for extra help if needed so that they can improve their grades for the next test.

PowerSchool is around us every day with students or parents checking on a grade, or teachers using it for attendance and putting grades in. Even though it causes stress, anxiety, or frustration, it’s also a way to keep track of how you’re doing and if there is anything that may need to be fixed or to ask for more help. Ultimately I feel that PowerSchool is beneficial to students, but they also have to be able to set boundaries with themselves and PowerSchool to be able to find the right way to go about it.