Each semester you have to setup Traditional Grade Calculations in PowerTeacher Pro. Don’t put this off, because students and parents will complain if their grades suddenly change for no apparent reason in the middle of the semester.

Go to Traditional Grade Calculations

Log into PowerTeacher, click on PowerTeacher Pro, click on Settings (1) then click Traditional Grade Calculations (2).

Note: Copying Traditional Grade Calculations

If you have classes that are setup the same –either in the current semester/year or previous years– you can copy Traditional Grade Calculations between classes.

Verify the semester/hexamester setup

Starting with your first class, click the arrow next to the class to expand that class and verify that it has these reporting terms:

Semester 1
S1: Term Weighting
Q1: Category Weighting
Q2: Category Weighting
F1: Total Points (if you don’t give a final, you can delete this later)

Semester 2
S2: Term Weighting
Q3: Category Weighting
Q4: Category Weighting
F2: Total Points (if you don’t give a final, you can delete this later)

Any Hexamester:
H?: Category Weighting

Edit the semester/hexamester setup

If the setup doesn’t match the above for a semester/hexamester OR if you need to add or remove a comprehensive final test/project, click on the pencil icon to the right of the semester/hexamester.

You can edit the weight for the quarters (1) and the final (2). Remember that the quarters have to be the same (that’s part of the grading guidelines). To remove a final, click on the minus sign on the right of the final. It will not work to change the weight of the final to zero. NOTE: It is also okay to leave the final in place with its current weight. PowerSchool will ignore the final if there are no assignments on the final dates. Click Save (3) when you are done.

Edit the categories for each quarter/hexamester

You have to tell PowerSchool which of your categories you will be using for each of the quarters, or –in the case of a hexamester course– for the whole hexamester. you do this by clicking on the pencil icon to the right of each quarter/hexamester:

1. Using the drop down fields, change the type to Category Weight.
2. Change the Attribute to the categories that you are using for this class. NOTE: if you are using Formative & Summative, they should be set already. You can add additional categories by clicking the plus sign on the right hand side. If you need to create a new category, you can do that by exiting this screen and using the +Create button at the very top of the screen. When you create a new category, you can say which classes will use it and many of the default values. There is a PowerSchool help document with more information on creating categories.
3. Change the Weight for each category so that you are aligned with the formative/summative grading guidelines for either 6th Grade (30/70), 7th & 8th Grade (25/75) or High School (20/80).

Note: You can use other categories in this section as long as the weights of the categories correspond to the grading guidelines. So this would be acceptable as well:

When you are finished with this quarter/hexamester, click Save at the bottom right and continue to the next quarter (for semester classes) or to your next class (for hexamester classes).

Notes:

1. You can setup classes for Semester 2 at the start of the year by clicking on the blue class selector at the very top of the screen and using the triangle dropdown in the upper left to change to the second semester. I mean, you’re there already and you know how to do it now.
2. After you are finished setting up the Traditional Grade Calculations for all of your classes, you might want to Setup Canvas to sync to PowerSchool.