For the 2010-2011 school year, the STA administration implemented a new student management system called Powerschool.
The system allows for more online mobility among students, teachers and parents in their everyday academic life. Teachers can now enter grades from any computer, and parents and students can now check their grades online. Another major part of the system that STA purchased was PowerScheduler, which created the new scheduling process that students had to go through. Classes, formerly known as mods, are now known as periods.
This upset students because with this new program, they would have classes with the same people everyday; whereas, in the past, students had classes with different people every day.
Principal for academic affairs Barbara McCormick admits that soon after the system was purchased administration realized that Powerschool could not maintain the scheduling system that STA had used in years past.
“When [the school] purchased Powerschool, [the school] believed that it would not change or deviate the multi-layered scheduling that St. Teresa’s is familiar with,” McCormick said. “However, [the school] soon figured out that it did not.”
McCormick does realize both the pros and cons the new system presents.
‘[Powerschool] has a lot of features that students now have access to,’Â McCormick said. ‘They now know how they are doing in classes, parents are able to engage more often in the learning elements that were not present with the old system and there is more tech support. [STA] now has a network of support from many different schools in the area who utilize Powerschool. [The system] is a huge database that allows people to be mobile and has less constraints than the old system.’Â
McCormick also said that the administration is aware that students feel they are not getting to know many of their classmates and that students also feel they are not getting many diverse opinions in classroom discussions. But McCormick also stated that the new scheduling system left a class with the ability to have more in-depth conversations and more long-term group projects than before.
Even with these pros and cons in mind, administration is currently looking into ways to change up the scheduling system for the coming years.
“We are looking at taking year-long courses and mixing the students up at semester using Powerschool, so that they feel they are still meeting new people,” McCormick said. “We are approaching the system to see what it has to offer.’Â
