PowerSchool Overview

PowerSchool Overview

PowerSchool is Circle USD 375’s student information system, used to record and track student records, including grades and attendance. It’s an award-winning system that allows educators and administrators to effectively and conveniently manage student records. It also allows us to share attendance and grade information with our parents. This guide details how to use the ‘Parent Portal’ of PowerGrade.

Logging On

To access the login screen. Bookmark this page in your browser for future access.

If you encounter problems logging in, or have forgotten your password, please contact Linda Farner, or dial (316) 541-2277 for assistance.

PowerSchool Guides

Below you will find a guide for providing an overview of how PowerSchool works. We’re offering these comprehensive guides for you to get acquainted with the PowerSchool system.

PowerGrade Parent Portal Guide (PDF)

The remainder of this guide will point out some features that we're using in each of the screens available in the Parent Portal.

Attendance and Grades

The first thing you will see upon logging-in to our system is the “Attendance and Grades” at-a-glance page. This provides easy access to recent grades, and classroom attendance. At the high school, attendance is taken for each period, and this class-by-class attendance is available for parents to see.

The “current” grade, or standing in the class, are listed under the appropriate semester and/or quarter, and clicking on this link will bring up a detail page for grades in that class. Clicking on the teacher name will activate a link so you can easily e-mail the teacher.

Along the top of the page are icons to lead you to different areas of the Parent Portal. We are currently not using the icons/links for Class Registration, Fees/Balance, or the Calendar.

Attendance Detail

The detail for attendance will show a reasonable span of time around the current date. In the example above, we can see that the student was absent in one class at the high school, and on a field trip two days before. A “dot” in the table indicates the child is not scheduled on that day, or attendance was not taken. A clear space indicates the student was present.

A legend for this screen is available at the bottom of the page.

Class Score Detail

If you click on the score for a class, you will next see the Class Score Detail screen, outlining assignments. In our example above, we see the final calculated grade, to date, and individual assignments. The words in blue (i.e., HW, Quiz 1) are links to even more detail about each assignment category and the actual assignment. Different teachers will provide different levels of detail for each assignment and category.

Teacher Comments

The Teacher Comments screen provides information via each teacher and course. Teachers have the optional ability to provide a comment, but comments will most likely be added at interim and at the end of marking periods. If a teacher does have a comment for your child, it can be accessed by clicking the “Teacher Comments” icon along the top toolbar within the Parent Portal.

E-mail Notification

You can ask PowerSchool to send you a periodic e-mail detailing information about your child’s progress in school.

This screen requests what you want to know in each e-mail, and how frequently you wish to receive the e-mails. We recommend a weekly report over a daily report, but the frequency of when you receive e-mails is up to you. If you ever need to change the address where e-mails are sent, you can change it from this screen at a future date.