By: Dana Perelberg ’20

According to a Westport Education Association [WEA] email sent Sept. 13, PowerSchool should be up and running Friday afternoon, potentially ending a two week stretch where students and parents could not access the online grade book.   

As of Sept. 14, the Staples PowerSchool site asks students and parents to enter their username and password, but those who do are unable denied entry.  Many students are frustrated by their inability to access their grades, but

“[PowerSchool not being launched] is pretty upsetting. I mean I love to look at my grades and see what’s going on.” Art Kelly ’18 said.

According to D’Amico, the delay in publicly launching the grading site was because it is so new.  “We are still shaking it down and trying to figure out everything it does,” D’Amico said. “All of the things that we wanna publish we have to make sure are displaying properly.”

In previous years, Westport schools used Home Access Center as a way for students and parents to see grades online.

“Our contract with [Eschool] expired and so we had some choices to make,” Principal James D’Amico said.

However, according to D’Amico PowerSchool bought Eschool, so Staples would have had to switch systems anyway.

Many students are hopeful about switching to PowerSchool. “If it’s a better system, then, yeah, I’ll be happy,” Charlie Zuckerman ’18 said.

According to D’Amico, it will be worth the wait.  He gave assurances that student will still be able to see their current grades and attendance that they are accustomed to seeing in HAC, and D’Amico also added that there will be “more functions that, over time, as the tech department troubleshoots, we’ll open up more and more things.”