PowerTeacher Pro is the teacher gradebook inside PowerSchool. It's where you enter scores, set how the class grade is calculated, check final grades at the end of a term and print reports. Students and parents then see the results in the PowerSchool portal.
One thing to know before you start: your district controls a lot of PowerTeacher Pro. Categories, grade scales, special codes, how grades are calculated and when terms lock can all be set or locked by an administrator. If a menu or setting below is missing or grayed out, that's usually why, and your school's PowerSchool admin is the person to ask.
The steps here follow PowerSchool's own PowerTeacher Pro documentation.
Enter scores on the Scoresheet
Scores go in on the Scoresheet. PowerSchool's Scoresheet guide sets out the steps:
- Choose Grading, then Scoresheet, and pick the reporting term if it isn't already selected.
- Find the assignment. Show Assignments from Most Recent puts the newest first.
- Enter each student's score in the Score column. Clicking a score cell opens the Score Inspector, where you can also add a flag or a comment.
- Use Preview Grades to see how the new scores change each student's final grade.
- Click Save.
If the term or class is locked, you can't change scores or final grades. Your district may also set a minimum assignment score, in which case anything you enter below it is raised to the minimum automatically.
To enter the same score, flag or comment for a whole column, use Fill in the Score Inspector. PowerSchool's guide to entering scores and comments notes that Fill only puts values into empty cells, so it won't overwrite scores you've already entered.
Flags, special codes and exempt scores
Flags mark the status of a piece of work: Collected, Late, Missing, Exempt, Absent and Incomplete. Most of them are labels for you, the student and parents. PowerSchool's documentation doesn't say that Missing, Late, Collected, Absent or Incomplete change a score on their own, so don't assume a Missing flag counts as a zero. Enter the score your grading policy calls for.
Exempt is different. An exempt score is left out of that student's final grade, so it neither helps nor hurts them.
Your district can also set up special codes. The defaults are INC (incomplete), ABS (absent) and MIS (missing), and an administrator can make a code mark work as missing or late, give it a set percentage value, or make it exempt from the final grade. What the codes do in your gradebook depends on how they were set up.
To leave an assignment out of the grade for the whole class rather than one student, turn off Count in Traditional Final Grade on the assignment. An assignment with the Collected Only score type has no score value and never counts toward the grade. Both settings are in PowerSchool's guide to creating an assignment.
Students see these flags and codes as icons and labels in the portal. Our guide to PowerSchool grade codes explains them from the student side.
Set up categories and weighting
Categories such as Homework, Quizzes and Tests live under Grading, then Categories. Categories your district created show a building icon. You can't delete a category that has assignments in it, but you can make it inactive.
How the class grade is worked out is set under Settings, then Traditional Grade Calculations. PowerSchool's guide to grade calculation types describes the main options:
| Calculation type | How it works |
|---|---|
| Total points | Points earned divided by points possible across every assignment |
| Category weighting | Each category gets a weight, for example homework 20%, tests 40% and the final project 40% |
| Term weighting | A longer term is built from shorter ones, for example Q1 at 40% and Q2 at 60% of the S1 grade |
Weighted categories, percentages or points.
To change the calculation, follow PowerSchool's traditional grade calculations steps: select the class, click Edit for the term, choose the type and weights on the Formula tab so the percentages add up to 100%, make sure Calculate Overall Class Grade is checked, and save. A lock icon means the term is locked.
Many districts set the calculation for every teacher and turn off teacher editing, so you may only be able to view it. To check what a category weighting does to a student's grade, the weighted grade calculator runs the same math outside the gradebook.
Finalize grades at the end of a term
"Finalizing grades" in PowerSchool is really two steps: you check and adjust the final grades, then you mark them complete for your school's office.
1. Review and adjust final grades. Go to Grading, then Traditional, and pick the term. PowerSchool's traditional grades guide explains that you select a final grade and change it in the Score Inspector, where you can also add a final grade comment. A black triangle in the corner of a grade shows it has been changed from the calculated grade. Click Save when you're done.
2. Mark your final grades complete. On the same page, click Final Grade Status, check Final Grades are Complete, add a comment if you need to, and save. PowerSchool's final grade status guide notes that your administrator is notified when you check the box. If something isn't ready, leave it unchecked and add a note explaining why.
After that, it's out of your hands. An administrator checks which teachers are complete, then stores the grades for the term. Stored grades are the ones that appear on report cards and transcripts, and once a term is stored or locked you may not be able to change grades without asking the office.
Print rosters, progress reports and report cards
PowerTeacher Pro's reports are under the Reports menu:
- Class roster. Reports, then Student Roster Report. Give it a title, choose the classes and which student details to include, and run it. Most browsers download the file automatically. See PowerSchool's student roster report guide.
- Progress report. Reports, then Individual Student Report. Choose what to include, such as grades, missing or late work and comments, pick a date range and students, and click Run Report. This is the report most teachers use as a progress report. See the individual student report guide.
- Whole class grades. Reports, then Scoresheet Report, gives a spreadsheet-style view of every student's scores and grades.
- Report cards. These are usually printed by the school office. Your district can let teachers print them, but if you don't see the option, ask your administrator.
Grade scales and rounding
Grade scales, the cutoffs that turn a percentage into a letter, are set by your district. If your district allows it, you can create a custom scale for a class under Settings, then Class Grade Scales, as explained in PowerSchool's class grade scales guide. A student who has their own grade scale shows an orange triangle next to their name on the Scoresheet.
PowerSchool's documentation says little about rounding beyond category weighting, where the category percentages are rounded. If a grade sits right on a cutoff, check the student's final grade on the Traditional page rather than relying on your own rounding.
Quick tools for grading
- The grade calculator turns questions wrong into a percentage, with a chart for every possible score, which is handy for marking a stack of tests before you enter them.
- The final grade calculator shows a student exactly what they need on the final.
- The PowerSchool grades guide is a good one to share with students and parents who ask how to read their grades.