PowerSchool: An Elementary School Parent-Portal Pilot Program

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

Henrico County Public Schools (HCPS) selected three elementary schools to pilot PowerSchool’s parent portal. The purpose was two-fold: • Teachers: Identify processes and challenges for teacher use of the product, and to set guidelines and expectations so that the parent experience would be consistent. • Parents and students: Identify best practices for use, establish communication, and develop protocols to assist with registration and parent training. Lastly, the need to identify the program’s technological shortcomings and how that might affect parents. We chose pilot schools to represent our varied demographics and in so doing, we were able to monitor varied trends, product use, identify best practices in targeted audiences and communities, and address strategies for maximum use among all stakeholders. While the pilot year is still ongoing, feedback from the three pilot school principals has been valuable. Parent feedback has been positive as they are now able to access information with relative ease. This has enabled a larger audience to access the program since not all parents have laptop or desktop computers. Similarly, teacher responses have been mostly positive. Most notably, the portal’s ease of use, increased communication, with decreased demand on teacher time by not having to print interim reports.