Elementary school was glorious. I remember arts and crafts, little to no homework and receiving progress reports every couple of weeks.
You may think it is a little weird to say that I liked to receive progress reports. I actually loved elementary school because PowerSchool did not exist back then.
My high school educational experience would have been much better without the website.
I have come to realize that PowerSchool has caused me to have unnecessary stress and has given me some bad habits.
“PowerSchool has added stress to students and has conditioned students to care more about the grade than the learning,” said Matthew Boling, physics teacher.
Now, when a teacher passes back a test, most of the students already know their grade. They do not care to even look at the test. Some students have stopped reading the helpful comments that teachers have written on their tests, and as a result, some teachers have stopped writing comments altogether.
Yes, I have to admit that the website is beneficial in many ways. Students can catch an error that a teacher might make, and parents can see how their student is performing academically.
“It’s a great resource for students and parents when it’s used correctly,” said Boling.
The problem is that sometimes the website is not used correctly.
Every day, I see my classmates whipping out their smart phones in order to check a grade they got on a test. I also hear about parents that check the site daily. Students and parents are as addicted to the PowerSchool as they are to Facebook.
Before the internet, and before PowerSchool, teachers used to keep logs of students’ grades and the students would receive a report card every semester, sometimes quarterly.
Imagine how much less stress students would be under if they only saw their grades four times a year.
Not only would students have less stress, they would also feel more obligated to do well in their classes.
Boling said that if students only received grade checks twice a semester, they would think that they need to do well on every assignment instead of just doing what they need to do to get their grade up to an A.
I’ll admit that I am guilty of watching my grades like a hawk on PowerSchool. I find myself waiting in agony for a teacher to put in a grade and get frustrated when it takes them a long time to do so.
According to Boling, progress reports were useful because teachers could write comments about why students may have a certain grade in their class.
PowerSchool can also be a problem for student athletes or students who are involved in certain clubs.
These students get their grades checked weekly. It is easy for coaches to check these grades and see who is failing, because of the accessibility of PowerSchool. The problem is that a student may have a failing grade in the class only because there is one quiz in the grade book.
Not to mention that there are parents who punish their kids based on a bad test grade that they may have received.
My parents do not even check PowerSchool, because they trust me and know that I try my best; although, I have some friends whose parents monitor the site and get daily grade updates via email.
Before PowerSchool, students might be punished for a bad grade on a test that they bring home, but now parents see everything. It puts an immense amount of pressure on students who already have many other pressures whether it is school work, a job, or extracurricular activities.
There are many ways that students and parents alike can use PowerSchool in a more beneficial manner.
I found that it is a lot less stressful to look at my grades on a weekly basis instead of twice a day. I also realized that once I started concentrating on understanding what I was learning instead of just studying for the one test that I thought would bring my grade up, my grades went up on their own.
I wish that we could abolish the whole system of PowerSchool, but I know that will not happen. So, I am merely suggesting that students and parents not abuse the website but instead use it as a tool.