For years, Freedom has used MMS as the scheduling and grading program. But a new school year always brings new changes and this year in particular the change has a significant impact on both students and faculty in the district.

PowerSchool is a “Student Information System (SIS) and is the leading school operations SIS solution for educational institutions.”

FHS principal William Deal used PowerSchool at his old school, and recommended that Freedom made the switch..

“PowerSchool is a lot easier to use, with MMS there were many steps you had to take to print a transcript and do stuff like that whereas with PowerSchool, it is much easier to access that information and get it out,” Deal said.

Students and their parents are not yet able to access PowerSchool, until at least the third week of September. Therefore, they are unfamiliar with the program and its capabilities. However, teachers have full access to PowerSchool and have begun to get familiar with the new program.

“As you start using PowerSchool, it is very customizable and once we are able to learn more about it, we can do things that are unique to our district and that will meet our own needs,” Deal said.

There are some schools in the area already using PowerSchool including Beaver, Hopewell and Lincoln Park.

Junior Tyler Mohrbacher attended Lincoln Park in his freshman year, before returning to Freedom his sophomore year. While at Lincoln Park, he got to experience PowerSchool and all that it is able to do. He is familiar with both programs and speaks very highly about PowerSchool.

“I thought that PowerSchool allowed me to look at a lot more than MMS does. It actually shows you whether your grade improved or worsened after each assignment is put in with either a green arrow pointing up or a red arrow pointing down,” Mohrbacher said.

US History and AP Psychology teacher Maria Porter is very excited for the switch to PowerSchool.

“PowerSchool makes creating assignments and putting in grades much easier and allows us to do so much more than MMS did,” Porter said.

MMS allowed teachers to create assignments and put their grades in, but they were limited to viewing students’ grades in their classes only. PowerSchool allows teachers to see their students grades in all of their classes. This way, if teachers need to know how students are doing in other classes, they can look without having to call another teacher to ask. This allows teachers to stay connected and know more about their students and their education.

PowerSchool can’t only be accessed through the internet — it is downloadable as an app on mobile devices. This providing students an easy way to access their grades anytime and anywhere.

Although students have a couple more weeks until they have access to PowerSchool, many are excited to see the “power” it contains.