News

Parents, teachers gain a tool for academic success

By Renae Bauer
Communications Department

GREEN BAY -- If your Catholic school isn't using PowerSchool yet, hang on. Tony Abts says you're going to love it.

As president of Appleton's ACES Xavier Educational System and past principal of St. Joseph Middle School, Abts has seen this Web-based software in action for about five years.

Among its most important features, PowerSchool has the ability to track student achievement; increase parental access to assignments and grades; give teachers uniform reporting tools for tasks such as grading, attendance and scheduling; standardize record-keeping functions; and organize data for strategic planning and decision-making.

PowerSchool "has really revolutionized parent communication because they are able to access their child's academic progress," he says. For example, through PowerSchool, a parent can e-mail a specific question to his or her child's teacher, which Abts says is far more effective than the old method of calling the school, leaving a message, and then playing "telephone tag" for a couple of days.

Teachers and parents are "going to see a tremendous advantage" with PowerSchool, says Abts. "Parents have come to rely on it. It has replaced mid-quarter reports, and the report card is more of a historical record."

The process for selecting PowerSchool was about two years in the making. Paula Nault, a financial systems consultant for the Diocese of Green Bay, was leading a committee of parish and school leaders in a search for standard accounting software when members realized the need for a standard school product. After much research and discussion, the group invited PowerSchool representatives to demonstrate their latest product, called PowerSchool Enterprise, to several groups of educators.

"I really liked it," Abts said of the demonstration. "PowerSchool is leading the field. Others just didn't compare."

Abts added that the newest release of PowerSchool will track individual student progress at a granular level, which should help parents understand what a grade means. For example, if a student receives a "C" in English, PowerSchool could help parents see that their child might have done well in the literature segment of the class but perhaps struggled in composition.

PowerSchool will also play an important part in assisting the diocesan Education Department with standardizing the recordkeeping functions for the 63 Catholic schools in the diocese.

"We need a unified, consistent system of software for the schools," says Joseph Bound, Ph.D., diocesan director of education. PowerSchool "will save a tremendous amount of time spent by local schools in recording and producing various reports, and will enhance the ability of the Department of Education to support the schools."

PowerSchool has received nearly unanimous approval from the 15 members of the diocesan Board of Education. This signals the go-ahead for several schools representing a cross-section of the diocese to test drive the software.

"The test phase will provide valuable feedback on what changes are needed before PowerSchool is available to everybody," says Nault. Once the test phase is completed, the diocese will invite the other schools to implement PowerSchool.

To offset the cost of PowerSchool, volunteers and staff are applying for grants from local and national foundations such as the Catholic Foundation for the Diocese of Green Bay, Microsoft and the Gates Foundation. The remaining costs will be averaged out over five years.

PowerSchool is part of a diocesan-wide software solutions project. It began three years ago when the Presbyteral Council asked the diocese to help parishes find a better and more standard way to perform certain accounting and census functions. Solutions for these areas are nearly selected. When approved, all of the software solutions, including PowerSchool, will work together so there is no duplication of effort or information.