‘We do have a lot of motivated students, who are really looking for feedback,’ McCormick said. ‘For students, PowerSchool gives them that immediate feedback. It shows them not only a single grade on an assignment, but total grade in the class and overall. Their GPA will show up at the bottom of the screen and [that will] constantly be changing, too.’

According to registrar and academic scheduler Kathy Walters, STA has been looking to switch to a new system for several years, but last summer, the school received an email that ultimately persuaded the transition.

In this email, administration learned that Pearson Education, the educational publishing company which administers STA’s current student management system, SASI (Schools Administrative Student Information), would not offer technical support for this system after 2010.

STA has used SASI, which encompasses the programs ClassroomXP and Integrade Pro for attendance and grading purposes, for nearly nine years. If STA had technical problems with any of these features in the past, it could rely on support from Pearson. However, without it, STA would struggle, according to Walters.

Because of its discontinuation of tech support for SASI, Pearson is offering discounts on its other programs to schools currently using SASI. STA has chosen to take Pearson up on the offer and turn to PowerSchool, another student information system which Pearson administers.

This switch will keep STA moving forward technologically, Walters believes.

‘I’m very excited,’ Walters said. ‘I think PowerSchool is going to be great for [STA]. This is the way of the future.’

According to Walters, PowerSchool is more advanced than SASI. While SASI encompasses multiple programs, PowerSchool will condense these features as well as others, such as email and transcript software systems, into one system.

PowerSchool will be the only place for teachers to enter grades electronically, according to McCormick, who hopes this will increase the speed at which teachers update their gradebooks. However, STA adminstration and faculty have yet to meet to discuss exact guidelines for teachers, and how often they must update student grades in PowerSchool.

Sophomore Melissa Lane is especially looking forward to using PowerSchool. Lane and her parents used the system previously at her elementary school, Academy Lafayette. However, she believes it will be more helpful for students at the high school level.

‘I think it’ll help a lot because there are times when I really want to see my grades, and I can’t,’ Lane said. ‘It’s frustrating [coming from a school that used PowerSchool], when I don’t have something like PowerSchool to know how well I am doing in a class.’

Lane believes that PowerSchool will help students to be more aware of what their grades are, but also that it may cause some students to become more competitive, resulting in a tenser student environment.

Similarly, campus ministry department head Robin Good believes that while PowerSchool has its benefits, no program is perfect. Good’s son, Tim, is a junior at Lee’s Summit High School and has been enrolled in schools using PowerSchool for the past seven years. Good currently has her son’s grades emailed to her weekly.

‘I really think I have mixed feelings [about PowerSchool],’ Good said. ‘I think anything that gives parents and students information is helpful, if it’s used in a healthy way, but [PowerSchool] really could easily be abused.’

Good has concerns that abuse to the system may come in the form of “overly-involved parents,” as she describes them. She stresses that PowerSchool should give parents only a glimpse of their daughters’ educations.

“I really think parents need to use common sense,” Good said. “I think there is the possibility for a parent who already seems hovering to look at their daughter’s grades on a multiple-times-a-day basis. This puts stress on kids. I personally use [PowerSchool] as a snapshot. Honestly, every day isn’t a good day, and every assignment doesn’t get the same attention.”

Despite her concerns, Good is ultimately pleased with STA’s latest technological advancement. She, McCormick and Walters believe the switch from SASI into PowerSchool will overall benefit the school and keep STA moving foward.

‘I like PowerSchool,’ Good said. ‘I feel more knowledgeable. I really think it’s a move in the right direction, as long as everybody uses it in ways that are healthy.’