First, the basics: the parent/guardians of students enrolled in 6th through 12th grades at Waukegan Public Schools are granted access to Portal. A great feature is that a single account allows a parent/guardian to see all of their middle and high school students. High school students are also given their own Portal accounts; however, they can only see their own information.
So, how do parents and high school students access this wonderful tool? At the beginning of the school year, the ITS department runs a large account creation batch for new-to-district parents, parents who will have a 6th grade student for the first time in the coming school year (if a parent has older students in the district and has already had an account created, the incoming 6th grade student is added to that existing account), and new high school students. These large batches are shipped off to the school and house offices for distribution. Throughout the school year, smaller batches are run for new-to-district parents and high school students.
Once the account credentials arrive in the school or house office, the account holder must pick up the credentials in person and show a photo ID. This step is crucial to safeguarding the information of our students. By having the account holder themselves receive the information, we are cutting the risk of an unauthorized person accessing a student's academic and attendance information. Portal credential letters are never mailed.
If a parent or student forgets their credentials, or experience trouble with their account, they can email [email protected]. Helpful information to include in the email would be the account holder's full name, student ID number (if a student; if a parent, the student's full name), and school or house of attendance. Portal Help then resets the account and sends the new credentials to the school or house office for pick up.
And what exactly does someone see in the Portal? Glad you asked. Attendance is one of the stars of the Portal. Not only does it show days when the student was marked absent, it also shows any tardies and also a period-by-period attendance analysis. So now, parents can see with their own eyes that their child is specifically skipping a particular class.
Grades are also shown in the Portal. Users can check posted grades, in-progress grades, and even scores on assignments. Anything that is entered in a teacher's grade book is visible on the Portal. One important thing that all teachers can do to help parents and students garner as much information as possible from the Portal is to use the T, M, L, I, Ch, X, and Dr boxes when scoring assignments. While you can always hover your mouse over the headers of these box rows, here's a little cheat-sheet to remember what these boxes do: T = Turned In, M = Missing, L = Late, I = Incomplete, Ch = Cheated (and automatically marks the assignment a 0), X = Exempt, and Dr = Dropped.
How do these boxes effect Portal? One of our parents' favorite reports in Portal is the Missing Assignments Report. Using this tool, parents (and students) can see which assignments have been marked as missing by teachers. Without using the Missing button, this information would not be available.
Finally, parents and students have access to reports that include assessment scores, unofficial transcripts, and report cards. All of this helps our parents and students watch student progress throughout the term, and serves as a step in furthering students academic success.
Do we have any employee-parents out there that use Portal? Share your Portal experiences in the Comments below. You may even be highlighted in a future blog post!