Skyward Student Suite Review

PROS: Skyward provides different features that are very helpful for us as teaches, we can use features for grading, taking attendance, setting up student profiles and etc. The program can be specialized to my school’s needs. It provides different sections in areas of academics.

CONS: There are so many features and the problem is that I don’t know how to use them all. I wish they could make tutorials on how to use the product. Also, I would like to enter grades with percent not numbers. Also, they could implement “push” button to return and enter grades to the next student.

PROS: When it comes to gathering and keeping data, Skyward meets all my needs. I can easily build reports, I can gather the data and sort it the way I want. One of the greatest things about Skyward is the ability to keep track and to view my students’ profile, it keeps everything from their address to their grades.

CONS: There is only one thing that I dislike in Skyward, when I want to make a new report I have to change/create few adjustments so I can get specific report. On the other side, the more reports you create the less need to make additional adjustments.

PROS: Skyward allows me to put in attendance and everyone in the office can view it immediately. Every piece of information starting from employee information to class information is in one place. I can keep track of every data, and access it any time.

CONS: I think the password requirement is too much. I’m not good in remembering passwords, so I have to change it very often. It really has so many requirements when it comes to passwords. I need to keep a post-it passwords on my desk.

PROS: The gradebook feature of Skyward is great and very useful application, I can easily enter my student’s grades with this software, and I can easily find categories. Parents are allowed to check upon their child’s grades, work and assignments. It is much easier to keep track of my work than in the past. Skyward helps me to be more organized as a teacher.

CONS: The printing of reports option is not understandable, even though I use this program for many years, I still have trouble in printing the right reports. It would be great if they could make the titles more clearly instead of having to ‘redo’ the reports to find the correct one. It would be better if they could implement a picture to preview the report before you download it.

PROS: I love the ability to pick different categories for the percentages, it does all the calculations. Skyward is time-saving program. We are able to send emails to our students and their parents, with only one click. Thanks to this program we have great communications with our students’ parents.

CONS: I don’t like the idea that other departments of the school can choose what to use or not use. Also, we want to speak with a skyward representative directly not going thru someone in the tech department who will speak with them. This process is very frustrating to us as teachers.

PROS: I can easily enter grades and assignments in pre-select categories. Also, I love the ability to interact with the parents via emails.

CONS: I don’t like when grades are shown immediately, because some students freak out when their friend has a grade and they don’t, this is because their assignments are not graded yet. It would be great if they could make separate assigning groups/categories within the class instead marking the assignments in this software as “No Count” for those who didn’t get the assignment. When parents see this they push pressure on their kids to do every assignment.

PROS: You are able to attach skills to tests and assignments, also the assignments can be created for work and even study habits. Teachers can communicate with their students’ parents via Skyward, this kind of communication is very helpful because they can have an access to their kids’ grades and progress, they can even get an email reports from their children’s teacher. Also, the attendance can be done through this program.

CONS: Within this year the system went down several times. Sometimes I struggle with entering quarter grades few days before they need to be finished. I have to go back and change the quarter and then to put the finished grades.

PROS: Skyward allows me to create, name and describe the assignments I give to my students. I can sort projects and classwork in several categories. I am able to see every student’ profile and even their schedule, this is great because I can always find students during any time of the day. In addition, I am able to assign other point systems so I can grade different types of projects. There is an option to customize notes for certain students.

CONS: I would like to “keep” grades when I enter only few in a class or sometimes I like to change the grade. It would be great if they could make more tutorials or videos on how to use the program and its features. To be honest, the program is really complicated and we need much training. Also, they could make the graphic interface more attractive.

PROS: What I love in Skyward is the ability to keep so much information, starting from assessment data, health data, homework, family data, intervention plans, and grades, to bus info. This is time-saving product and great thing for keeping our students’ data. The other good thing is that everything is in one place.

CONS: Everything works great and the product has many capabilities, but there is one problem with this product, and that is the limitation of some options. We cannot activate all options and we cannot add data, we know what features this product offers but unfortunately we cannot use those features. This is very frustrating.