SCHOOL VISION:
| We will provide students a challenging curriculum in a safe, nurturing, and positive learning environment. |
GOAL: What is the relationship between parental use of Power Schools (a web based student information system that incorporates an online grade book) and student academic performance? In what ways can our school encourage parental use of Power Schools? Therefore, the goal of this plan is for our school to actively encourage parental use of Power Schools in order to increase academic performance. The goal of my plan is to implement methods used by the administration and teachers at my school to encourage the use of Power Schools by parents. The outcome of my plan will hopefully be to show that an increased use of the program has also led to an increase in student academic performance.
| OUTCOMES | ACTIVITIES | RESOURCES/ RESEARCH TOOLS NEEDED | RESPONSIBILITY TO ADDRESS ACTIVITIES | TIME LINE | Benchmarks/ ASSESSMENT |
| Determine the final core (ELA, Math, SS, Sci) academic grades for all current 7th grade students at Dawkins Middle School. | Obtain data from Power Schools to determine the grades for every 7th grade student at DMS in their core academic classes. | Power School | Joel Jacobs Mr. Steve Martin, Asst. Principal at DMS Amanda Dobson, Dir. of Instructional Technology | 5/24—6/1 | Completed data |
| Determine the amount of access by parents using Power Schools for the 2011-2012 academic year. | Obtain data from Power Schools to chart the amount of access to the program for each student. | Power School | Joel Jacobs Mr. Steve Martin, Asst. Principal at DMS Amanda Dobson, Dir. of Instructional Technology | 5/24—6/1 | Completed data |
| Chart the relationship between the use of Power Schools and academic performance. | Create a spreadsheet that correlates students grades to Power School access. | Data from the Power School printouts | Joel Jacobs | 6/1—6/15 | Completed spreadsheet |
| Determine teacher perceptions regarding the use of Power schools by parents and academic performance. | Create and distribute a survey to all teachers in the school to measure their perceptions regarding Power Schools and academic performance. | Survey, possibly Survey Monkey. | Joel Jacobs | 3/18—5/21 | Creation of and completion of survey. Analysis of survey results and creation of a document to illustrate survey results. |
| Learn more about the use of Power Schools in other districts. | Conduct a review of pertinent websites relating to the use of Power Schools; this will serve as a type of literature review. | Internet and educational journals. Manuals from the district office regarding the Power Schools program. | Joel Jacobs Amanda Dobson, Dir. Of Instructional Technology | 3/18—5/21 | Completion of a literature review |
| Implement strategies to increase use of Power Schools by parents. | Work with teachers and administrators to implement possible strategies to increase Power School use by parents. Implement the strategies created by the staff of DMS. | Schools phone master program. Schools website. Teacher websites and personal pages on the Power School site. | Joel Jacobs Staff and faculty of DMS | 6/1—8/15 | Creation of and implementation of school wide strategies. |
| Determine the final core (ELA, Math, SS, Sci) academic grades for all current 8th grade students at Dawkins Middle School for the first semester of the 2012-2013 school year. | Obtain data from Power Schools to determine the grades for every 8th grade student at DMS in their core academic classes for the first semester of 2012-2013. | Power School | Joel Jacobs Mr. Steve Martin, Asst. Principal at DMS Amanda Dobson, Dir. of Instructional Technology | 1/14—1/23/2013 | Completed data |
| Determine the amount of access by parents using Power Schools for the first semester of the 2012-2013 academic year. | Obtain data from Power Schools to chart the amount of access to the program for each student. | Power School | Joel Jacobs Mr. Steve Martin, Asst. Principal at DMS Amanda Dobson, Dir. of Instructional Technology | 1/14—1/23/2013 | Completed data |
| Chart the relationship between the use of Power Schools and academic performance. | Create a spreadsheet that correlates students grades to Power School access. | Data from the Power School printouts | Joel Jacobs | 1/24—2/8/2013 | Completed spreadsheet |
I'm not aware of what Power Schools is. I plan to google it promptly. Do you plan on providing access to computers on your campus that can be designated for parents only? What is your hypothesis on why there isn't more participation now?
ReplyDeleteLatrice,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. Here is the web link for the program put out by a company called Pearson. You probably aleady found it. http://www.pearsonschoolsystems.com/products/powerschool/
I am not sure how we could offer computer access to parents but my asst. principal suggested opening one of our computer labs after hours. I am thinking that our district will not allow this.
We are only in our third year of using this program and I think many parents are used to getting a paper report every three weeks. Either an interim report or the reoprt card itself was sent home at three week intervals. This year we switched to a nine week grading period instead of a six week grading period so they are only getting a report every four and a half weeks. As a teacher, you can check how often and how mnay kids in your classes have accessed the information. I am surprised by how many parents have not yet logged in to the program. Guess I'll find out more reasons why they haven't as I complete my survey.