PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
To take Attendance:
High School1. Attendance must be taken for each period! To do so, select the student desk next to the
period for which you wish to enter attendance.
2. Click on the box next to the student’s name to activate the option of choosing present or
absent. One of these two options should be chosen for each student. Once finished, click the
submit button to submit your period attendance.
YOU MUST COMPLETE YOUR ATTENDANCE FOR EVERY PERIOD. PERIOD ATTENDANCE
COUNTS FOR STUDENT CREDIT AND POWERSCHOOL THEN CALCULATES YOUR
SCHOOL’S AVERAGE DAILY ATTENDANCE. ***NO DAILY ATTENDANCE PERIOD WILL
EXIST FOR HIGH SCHOOL THIS YEAR—DAILY ATTENDANCE IS A CALCULATION
DEPENDENT UPON THE PERIOD ATTENDANCE TAKEN.
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
Gradebook Setup:
1. Open your gradebook—Until further notice, please use the OLD LAUNCH. Using the new
launch may cause some issues with NC’s interface.
2. If you had a gradebook last year, you will need to choose the correct year from the drop down
tool in the upper let-hand corner (shown below).
Choose the year, semester or quarter in
which you wish to initially work.
Remember you must set up all of your
classes for the entire year/semester.
3. Next, choose preferences from “tools” at the top.
Choose Grading from the tabs in the pop up box.
4. A new screen for grading should appear. Click on truncated and set it to 2 decimal places.
Choose what should be checked below the number of decimal places. Some
schools/school levels choose all of the information, while some schools choose not to
display points earned and tardies. Your school/level should decide whether or not to
display this information. When finished click okay.
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
5. Again under, “tools” choose preferences. Next, click on the mail tab on the preferences pop up
box and add your mail, email and phone information.
6. Under “tools” and preferences, you may now choose to set up special score codes in Power
Teacher gradebook. You can do this by choosing the Score Codes tab on the Preferences pop
up box.
Click Add to create a unique code.
You must define the code and assign
the value to the code. If you do not
want it to be included in grade
calculations, choose the exempt
option. This is where you could set
up special codes for work not handed
in or for an absentee work code.
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
7. You can also choose the way in which the sections/section names are displayed in the
gradebook. To do so, select “tools” and preferences. Then, choose the section tab on the
Preferences pop up box. You can then set your preferences.
8. You have the option of turning off the spell checker or of adding new words to the spell checker
dictionary. This is also found under the “tools” and preferences. To do this, choose the spell
check tab on the Preferences pop up box.
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
9. Standards based grading/links can be set up under “tools” and preferences as well by choosing
the Standards tab. We, however, are not using this option at this time. Please check to make
sure that all boxes on this screen are unchecked!
10. Lastly, you can choose how to display student names in the gradebook under “tools” and
preferences. To make these choices, click on the student tab in the Preferences pop up box and
then make your selections for student name display and sorting preference.
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
11. Pearson has some pre-populated categories all ready stored in the gradebook. To add new
categories or to delete any of the pre-populated categories stored in the gradebook, use the
section in the lower right-hand corner of the gradebook labeled “categories”. The pre-populated
categories are daily grades, homework, project, quiz and test. To remove a category, click on it
and then choose the – button. You will be asked to confirm you deletion. **If you have
previously used a category, even if it was last year, you will not be able to delete it.
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
To add a category, click the + button and set the parameters for the category in the screen that
appears. Remember that all categories should have a total of 100 possible points and should
have a score type of “percent”. Because the county has a maximum homework policy rule (no
more than 20%), it has been decided that we will use category weights as opposed to a points
system. PLEASE adhere to this system.
To Add a
Category
Should be
100
Should be
Percentage
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
12. To edit an existing category, double click on the category name in the lower left-hand corner.
This will pop a box showing the category specifications. Please make sure that the category is
set to 100 possible points and score type as “percentage”.
Total Points = 100
Score Type= Percentage
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
The next set of steps must be preformed for every section that you are teaching!
1. Choose the course that you wish to set up from the classes list in the upper right hand corner
of the gradebook.
2. Choose the Grade Setup icon from the top of the gradebook section.
3. Make sure that the calculations tab is highlighted in blue. If not, click on it. You should see a
display of books labeled with the “terms” associated with the course.
For example:
*A year-long high school course would have books for F1, S1, Q1, Q2, S2, Q3, Q4 and X3.
*A semester high school course would have books for F1, Q1, Q2 and X1 (for semester 2, the
folders would be F1, Q3, Q4 and X2).
High School:
Year-Long
Semester
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
4. To setup the grading parameters on the individual reporting terms, double click on the termstarting with F1.
You MUST choose Term Weights for F1. The only
time this is different is if you have a quarter class in
middle school!. Then it should be category weights.
Once term weights is chosen, a new screen will populate at the bottom of the screen that will allow
you to establish the weights for the “parts” of F1.
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
High School:
Year-long: Under F1, you should see S1, S2 and X3.
S1=37.5
S2=37.5
X3=25
Semester: Under F1, you should see Q1, Q2 and X1. For 2nd semester, you will see Q3, Q4 and X2.
Set: 1st Semester
2nd Semester
Q1=37.5
Q3=37.5
Q2=37.5
Q4=37.5
X1=25
X2=25
For High Year-long courses:
Directions for setting the grading parameters for S1 and S2




Double click on S1
Set Q1 and Q2 to 50% each
Double click on S2
Set Q3 and Q4 to 50% each
To set up your quarter grading parameters (elementary, middle and high):
1. Double click on Q1.
2. Click Category Weights-We Will not use total points due to our 20% homework Board Policy
3. Once you click on category weights, a screen will appear like the one below.
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
4. Choose Add Category from the bottom of the screen and another pop up screen should
appear called “select categories”. This screen allows you to select categories from those that
you established earlier in the process. Choose all of the categories that you wish to use for the
class. Remember, if you choose the category, you should be able to include at least one
assignment during the quarter in that category. Not including the category will skew the
grades.
5. Once you have chosen the categories, weight them by placing their percentage weights in the
weight column. The percentages MUST add up to be 100.
6. This process must be repeated for Q2-Q4.
For the exam categories (X1, X2 or X3):
1.
2.
3.
4.
Double click on the exam term (X1, X2 or X3)
Set the term to category weights
Add a category-typically test
Weight the test to 100%
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
Adding Assignments to the Gradebook
1. To add an assignment into the gradebook, choose the class from the list of classes in the
upper left-hand corner.
2. Click on the scoresheet icon at the top of the gradebook screen.
3. Click the + button to add an assignment.
4. Once the + button is clicked, a screen appears at the bottom that allows the teacher to “define”
the assignment.
Remember that score type should be percentage and points
possible should be 100. You really should NOT weight
assignments here. They are all ready weighted in the grade
setup.
5. Using the publish tab, you can decide when the assignment should be published to be seen.
This especially allows you to define when parents “see” the assignment in parent portal. We
currently do not use the standards tab.
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
6. Once this process is complete, choose save from the lower right-hand corner. This
assignment can be copied to other classes by choosing “tools” and copy assignments. This
choice opens a window that allows you to choose which classes to copy the assignment into
their gradebooks.
7. To delete an assignment, use the – button under the + button you used to add an assignment.
To enter the grades into the assignment categories
1. To enter the scores for students in an assignment column, click in the first student box in the
column and begin typing the scores. You must use the down arrow key or the mouse to
move down in the column. You can also use the grades selection choice on the pop up
box when you right click in the first student box.
2. To quick fill a column with the same score, right click on the first box in the column and
choose fill scores from the pop up box.
**This pop up box also allows you to designate an assignment as late or exempt. The score
inspector choice will show a box with all of these choices and a tab for comments.
PowerSchool Attendance/Gradebook Instructions
To Print Progress Reports
1. To print progress reports, choose the reports icon from the top of the gradebook screen.
2. Choose the Individual Student Report Choice
3. Choose the parameters for the report that you wish to print
4. Choose run report. The reports will open in another window in your browser. You can then
choose to print all reports or choose the pages that you wish to print.