Problematic PowerSchool Follow Up

Andrew Frink, director of data services, has been working with PowerSchool bugs since last summer, when they "upgraded" PowerSchool to the 9.0 version, which wasn’t quite as positive a change as anticipated. There are so many bugs that Andrew and other technicians are working at the Park City School District schools every day, and have been since last summer. Why is it so buggy? According to Andrew, “[PowerSchool] is very complex software and the problems have been difficult to resolve.” They are unsure of why it’s so buggy and why it hasn't been fixed yet, but they will continue working to fix this complicated issue. Still, the bugs will most likely continue for a long time unless the company itself fixes it and actually improves it.

It’s been weeks, months, years since PowerSchool hasn’t been an issue for the Park City School District. PowerSchool is a program through which students can see their grades, to help keep them in the loop on how they are doing in school. Well, it should be that way, but one day, PowerSchool is shutting down for no reason, and the next, teachers can’t enter their grades, not to mention its absurdly long loading times - have fun watching three episodes of Modern Family while you wait for it!

Another thing that PowerSchool is supposed to be able to do is pair with Canvas. The grades students are given in Canvas are supposed to transfer right over to PowerSchool, but they simply don't, so it makes for a very long process. The teachers usually take a long time to put in grades, because they have to do it manually, so students can’t see their grades. When all of their grades get put in at the last minute, they don’t have time to make it up and try to raise their grades. When students submit something to Canvas, teachers fill out a rubric to quickly and automatically give you a grade. If those scores went straight to PowerSchool - like they’re already supposed to do - it would be extremely easy to receive grades, but it doesn’t do that, so teachers have to go to PowerGrade and manually insert the grades a second time. In the process, things get forgotten, scores are messed up (sometimes through typos, sometimes switched between students, and so on), and time is wasted just because the programs don’t work properly. It may be months, or even years until these problems are fully fixed.