Opening the Portal – Walpole Public School District's Success
USR06
Lynn Rowan, Software Support SpecialistWalpole Public Schools
Agenda • Goals and Benefits• Overview of the portal• Planning and preparation• Implementation:• Setup• Communication
• Portal maintenance• Best practices • Help• Q & A
Original Goals
• Provide tool for student achievement
• Increase home-school communication to more fully engage families
• Change from scheduled progress reports to ongoing communications
Added Benefits
• Parent conferences become much more productive and substantive
• User validation of student data
• Consistent grade reporting
• Transparency in our record-keeping
• Production and mailing costs cut substantially
Overview of Family Portal•Home tab:
-Class and school announcements
-Recent activity•Family tab:
- Demographics- Attendance- Conduct- Transcript- Schedule- Online course
requests
- Transactions- Notifications
Overview of Portal Tabs
Academics tab:•Details (Grades)•Assignments•Attendance
Reports:•Report cards•Schedules•Transcript
Planning the Roll-Out• Communicate with district administrators to
set goals and timelines.
• Determine:o Features o Schoolso Users
• Establish/communicate gradebook grade reporting standards with staff.
• Identify support staff.
Preparation• Contacts:– Clean up; delete where possible, merge
where needed.
• Communication:– Draft Family portal letter.– Craft student account logon letter.– Create Web resources for users.
• Develop training plan:– How will families be trained?– What training is needed for teachers/staff?
Implementation: Account Setup
• Create families – use last name and address.
• Create student accounts:o Custom login expression used to match to school
network login.o Expiration dates used to identify school.
• Create family accounts for emergency priority 1 contacts.
Implementation: Communication
• Family portal letter distributed.
• Logon page link added at district and school level.
• Directions for login and report printing posted on Web sites.
• Set up hands-on workshop at open houses, parent conferences.
Family Portal Maintenance
• Ongoing support for families, students, teachers
• Ongoing updates to family members
• Customize templates and reports for portal
• Add new users/delete exited as needed
• Create co-custodial parents accounts as requested
Best Practices
• Central student registration
• Training around standardized data entry
• Emphasize transparency of data to all staff (i.e., conduct referrals, student names)
• Use ability to hide features until they are test-driven and consistent (i.e., conduct)
The X2 listserve: [email protected]
Feel free to contact me with questions at:[email protected]
Help is available…
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