PowerSchool Unified Classroom

Last updated: 10 April 2019

PowerSchool is BFA's central student information system (SIS). Most of your time will be spent in the Unified Classroom portal, although there may be some functions which require you to utilize PowerSchool's backend interface. Wherever you need to be, you should start at http://classroom.powerschool.com.

Subjects covered on this page include:

Logging in

1. Go to http://classroom.powerschool.com

2. Beneath the Sign In button, click Sign in with Google.

3. Use your BFA Google account to log in.

If you have any troubles getting to/through this page, try going to http://classroom.powerschool.com/logout.

Exploring the dashboard

At the top of the dashboard, there's a menu in the top middle for choosing classes.

Clicking the PowerSchool Unified Classroom logo will always bring you back to this dashboard.

On the right side are your upcoming assignments. Click View More to see all of your assignments in a list view.

In the centre is a calendar of assignments for your classes. Click View More to see more than just today. You can choose a day, a week, or a month at a glance.

Finding Class Pages

Looking at the screenshot of the dashboard above, please note the menu on the left side. Class Pages are portals managed by teachers for their courses. We respect the professional direction that our teachers choose in terms of the extent to which they use Class Pages as an educational tool. At a minimum, you can expect to find:

    • general class information/overview

    • syllabus

    • assessment information

    • grading policy

    • calendar, assignment schedule, etc.

    • teacher contact information

1. To find a Class Page, make sure that you are in the right class (top centre), and click Class Pages on the left.

Finding grades

Individual grades for assignments appear right next to the assignment.

In the left menu, click on Progress, and then Assignments to get a list view of your assignments, with grades at the far right. You can filter the results by clicking on the filter icon.

If you would like to see your current grade records, click on Quick Links in the left menu.

From this page, click Current Grades and Attendance for an overview of grade progress.

This will open a new tab that takes you to PowerSchool's backend interface (you can close this tab when you're finished).

See below for a screenshot of the Grades and Attendance page in PowerSchool.

The Grades and Attendance page shows a running score up to the current quarter. A semester score is the weighted total of two quarters and an exam. If you have questions about the specific weighting in a course, please see the Class Page for this course in Unified Classroom.

On this page, you can click a grade (under Q1, for example) to see a detailed breakdown of the grade.

This detailed breakdown is on a page called Class Score Detail.

Here you can see each assignment that has been graded, as well as any icons for Flags that can help provide context.

For example, the screenshot here includes assignments that have a description. As a result, you could click on View on the far right of the table to view that description. If the teacher had provided comments, clicking View would also show you those comments.

A legend of the icons is at the bottom of the Class Score Detail page (screenshot below).

Communication and notifications

1. Click on your name in the bottom left corner of the page, followed by Settings.

2. On the Settings page, click My Settings.

3. Click Notifications to see your notification settings.

4. Go through and turn on Instant Email for all available options.

This is the safest bet to make sure that you're up to date with what your teachers are sharing.

Class Registration

1. Click on Quick Links in the left menu, and go to Class Registration.

This opens a new tab and takes you to the back-end interface of PowerSchool, and will show you a page for this year.

2. Click on Class Registration in the left menu.

Required courses will automatically appear, and can't be edited, even if you click the edit icon at the far right.

When you click to edit a section (i.e. Mathematics), you will not be able to select courses for which you haven't met the prerequisites. An alert will appear in the right side of the popup window (screenshot below).

Alerts and Course Descriptions can help you understand your choices. Over time, more descriptions and alerts will be added to further assist you in choosing.

Each section includes a line that reads "Number of requests to generate", followed by a 1 or a 2.

This refers to 1 for one semester, and 2 for two semesters/year-long. So, if you request a year-long course, this line will read "Number of requests to generate: 2".

Additional Requests, near the bottom of this page, are not editable by students or parents. This refers to courses that school administration has entered on behalf of a student because the course was otherwise not an option to select. You can click the edit icon, but you won't be able to edit anything in this section.

At the bottom of the page, you'll see a notation of how many credit hours you require and how many you're requesting.

You need to remain within the credit hour requirement.

3. Once you have selected your courses, press the Submit button (bottom right), taking you to a page shown below.

The Type column shows an internal system requirement; you should ignore that column.

The Cr Hrs column shows credit hours per semester, so if you have requested a year-long course, it will show up twice on this list, each time for 0.50 credit hours.

The Course Catalog button doesn't show anything right now, so don't worry about that.

The View Graduation Progress isn't valuable to students in lower grades, but can be helpful the closer you get to graduation.

Note: You should not attempt to change your course requests; if you have any questions about your requests, please contact your guidance counselor.

Outside of course request season, clicking on Class Registration in the left menu will take you to your list of existing course requests, instead of the initial request page.

The mobile app - to use or not to use

There are some differences to the user experience between the Android/iOS apps and the web browser experience. Please note that we are focusing on training and building familiarity in the web browser access, not the mobile app. You are welcome to explore the mobile app and familiarize yourself with that environment, but the official platform for our PowerSchool and Unified Classroom usage at this time is through web browser access.