Boardingware, headquartered in Auckland, offers their student management system for boarding schools, built around managing the needs particular to boarding schools, such as student care and student tracking.
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PowerSchool SIS
Score 8.4 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
The PowerSchool Student
Information System covers administrative needs, such as scheduling, attendance,
reporting, data management, faculty management, emergency/medical and health
management, registration, and more for K-12 schools and districts. It is easy
to use and boasts an industry-leading gradebook, PowerTeacher Pro. Users enjoy
a fully web-based SIS that is flexible, configurable, and scalable with
real-time updates on any operating system, browser or device.
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Pricing
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PowerSchool Student Information System
Editions & Modules
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
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PowerSchool SIS
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
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PowerSchool Student Information System
Features
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PowerSchool Student Information System
Student and Faculty Administration
Comparison of Student and Faculty Administration features of Product A and Product B
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Ratings
PowerSchool Student Information System
8.5
Ratings
3% above category average
Integrations with 3rd-Party Education Technology
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9.00 Ratings
Online Registration Management
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10.00 Ratings
District Communications, such as messaging and alerting
This is hands down the best application on the market in terms of making sure parents and staff understand where students are at any given time during the day. It also has done a great job of expanding into buy-in areas for students such as having event sign-ups inside the application. Having parent accounts also does a great job of keeping lines of communication open between the parents, school, and students.
PowerSchool is great for schools to keep track of student information, schedules, and grades. It integrates with other programs to make setting up classes easier and faster. PowerSchool gives teachers a singular place to find information or input students' grades. It also has an app for parents or guardians to use to check their student's grades which is very useful.
User-friendly interface. One doesn't need to really even use the tutorials if they don't want to.
Customer service - I've never gone more than 24 hrs without an issue being resolved. Usually it's much less than that.
Constant improvements and expansion. The program keeps growing without the need to change what we're doing. There are improvements that are helpful, but we're not forced to use them if they are not actually useful or needed. This is a great asset.
PowerSchool houses student or staff information that can be easily accessed by those teachers and administrators who need the information. This allows everyone to go to one place to access information.
Parents can view their child's grades at any time with their protected login on a parent portal. This allows teachers to keep parents informed and involved in their child's progress at school. When everyone works together it increases our students' chance for success.
PowerSchool offers videos to train new users. When we have new employees, the videos can be accessed at any time the employee needs as opposed to them waiting for someone to help them.
The user interface could be more intuitive. Because of the many features, it can sometimes be difficult for administrators to find what they are looking for.
A recent upgrade allowing for more flexibility in the relationship between students and parents was long in coming and didn't go very smoothly. We are now dealing with a ton of clean-up after the upgrade. Even after we have cleaned everything up, there is still a ways to go before PowerSchool is on par with other SIS systems in that area. In their defense though, they are actively working on getting caught up.
I gave this rating because Boardingware support is unbelievable. They are quick to reply and have a chat feature that they not only are there for most of the day but you can leave a note if they are not available and they get back to you very quickly. I thoroughly enjoyed any conversations I had with support from Boardingware.
Overall, I have not had to use support for PowerSchool Student Information System because our school district gives us training in each area in which we will be utilizing PowerSchool Student Information System. In terms of in-user support, I feel that there is mild to moderate user support that is built into PowerSchool SIS.
Senior Systems did not work as well and the functionality from the administrative side is not as user-friendly. I often felt like it was down and not working properly, or that I could not find where certain documents are. I believe that for a boarding school community Boardingware was much more user-friendly, and did not take as many steps in order to get the job done quickly.
Each software I used in my career had special features which were specifically unique for them. PowerSchool Student Information System was an impressive software that offered the ability to ease student registrations and admissions online using web forms where students and parents could submit and upload their information and necessary documents to the school/institute with just a few clicks. Even though this feature is available on a few other similar software, PowerSchool Student Information System was the only software that was specialized in this area.
We are able to manage the weekend and weekly sign outs of boarders. We are also able to store this information ion the cloud in case it is ever needed in the future.
Parents are able to manage their sons where abouts and also have the knowledge that they know where their boys are on the weekends
Housemasters are protected if they follow procedures in case of a boarder missing a roll call and has not signed out.
Having one system within the school district is beneficial. Teachers are able to access a variety of information and also do input all within the same program.
Communication with parents has been impacted greatly, as they always have information at their fingertips without teachers having to call or email them with a grade update. Parents are able to check student's grades at any time.
