PowerSchool Student Information System vs. SchoolAdmin

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.

Incentivized

I would recommend SchoolAdmin for independent school admissions offices. I am not familiar with its use in other settings. It is most useful for offices who are interested in a paperless review process and targeted communications. They have improved their payment collection processes and integration with all billing is possible. We have not yet fully explored this avenue.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Automated lead nurture sequence for inquiries, admissions, and enrollment.
• Digitized recommendation forms
• Communication tools (email and text in particular) to connect with prospects

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Not as flexible as we sometimes need the features to be.
• Data and historical information is not terribly accurate, which means we cannot use it for reporting.

Incentivized

The district is unlikely to change systems due to the cost of training and tech support to facilitate such a switch.

Incentivized

Great features, but it can feel very cumbersome at times

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We compared a number of options in considering a new admissions software platform. In the end, customer service, search and reporting capabilities, ease of use, and automated processes made SchoolAdmin the right choice for us. Cost wise, SchoolAdmin was comparable to other systems.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• SchoolAdmin has helped streamline our admissions and enrollment processes significantly, resulting in a better customer experience.
• It has helped us reduce paper use, moving from sizable hard copy information packets, applications, and contracts, to having almost everything online and digital. This reduces waste, contributes to environmental well-being, and significantly reduces the need for physical storage and archival space.
• The system has helped improve accuracy and timeliness in data collection, transmission, and communication, allowing our staff to dedicate more time to relational work and less on administrative busywork.

Incentivized