This year, with the addition of PowerSchool, STA added to their tuition contract that if tuition has not been paid, students will not have online access to their grades. This has upset many students who are used to being able to see their grades whenever they want.
Parents sign a tuition contract to STA each year promising to pay tuition according to their payment plan. The contract outlines STA policy if the tuition is not paid. It states under “School Policy” that “no academic reports or transcripts will be furnished, including access to PowerSchool, until all financial obligations have been fulfilled.”
According to STA president Nan Bone, the policy has always been this way; if tuition has not been paid, neither students nor their parents can access their grades. Before PowerSchool, students could not receive grade printouts or ask teachers to show them how they were doing in a class. Bone said the change just feels more drastic because students now have daily access to their grades.
“It’s not a way for us to punish the students,” Bone said. “Unfortunately the students sometimes take that as a punishment, but I guess what we’re trying to do is look at the big picture. The big picture for us is that the only way we can run this school is tuition and fundraising.”
Many students, however, disagree with the rule. They feel that this policy hurts them academically.
‘The technology has been introduced into our school for a very good reason,’Â senior Maddie Lundgren said. ‘It’s a great resource. Denying this technology to students behind on tuition puts them at a disadvantage because they cannot monitor their grades.’Â
According to Bone, the administration does not alert the students or their parents before they blocked their PowerSchool accounts. It is stated in the tuition contract, so if parents were wondering why they were blocked out, they called the school.
‘I know many students who were confused when they found themselves locked out,’Â Lundgren said. ‘There was no notification system so students had to ask a teacher why they could not log in. That put the teacher in an awkward situation and embarrassed the students.’Â
Junior Brenna Scott has also not been able to log into her PowerSchool account since the beginning of the second semester because her tuition has not been paid.
‘I can’t see what my grade is, so I don’t know whether it’s low or high,’Â Scott said. ‘I don’t know what I’m missing in that class to make it up to raise my grade. It can be so annoying.’Â
Scott thinks that PowerSchool is a great tool to measure her academics and is frustrated that she can no longer view her grades.
‘I used to look at PowerSchool like four times a day,’Â Scott said. ‘I could see what classes I needed to raise, and I would focus on [them] more. But grades aren’t the same every day, so I have no idea what they are now.’Â
However, according to Bone, the policy has worked for the administration so far.
“When parents get behind it’s a great a reminder, like ‘oh gosh I forgot I need to pay’ and it just is a great reminder for parents,” Bone said. “And more often than not it works. Not shortly after that we’ll get a payment. It’s just the way it is in the Catholic school system.”
Senior Maura Porter, who has also found herself blocked out of PowerSchool this semester, believes there are much better ways for the administration to make sure the tuition is paid than blocking access to students’ grades.
‘So often, it’s not that tuition isn’t being paid on purpose but because families simply can’t pay at the time,’Â Porter wrote in an interview. ‘It just adds unnecessary frustration and stress. Private conversation between the administration and the student and their families would make much more of an impact than blocking a student from a valuable asset that just proves to foster resentment towards an otherwise understanding institution.”
