My school grades: School Ratings & Reviews for Public & Private Schools: GreatSchools

NYC Schools Account NYCSA

NYCSA Parent Portal

The new NYC Schools Account (NYCSA) Portal will allow you to:

• See your students grades, test scores and more in My Student
• Take classes in Parent University
• Report bullying
• Access forms for your child
• Reset your child’s DOE account password
• Access SupportHub

All with one login!

In the next few months, more features will be added making this a true one stop for parent facing information to support student learning. 

You can sign up for an account by entering a few basic details. This will allow you to begin receiving notifications from the DOE. It only takes five minutes, and it is the first step in getting a full account. 

MyStudent

Track your Student’s Academic Progress

Did you know that you can track your child’s education on any computer, phone, or tablet? In MyStudent, you can track your student’s academic progress. View their grades, schedule, test scores, transportation, attendance, and more! If your student has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), you can view their student’s recommended services. You must be linked to a student in order to view this information. See the Adding Students section to learn how to link your student to your account. 

Forms

NYCSA now allows you to submit digital versions of paper forms directly. Using technology powered by Docusign, you can fill out and sign a digital form that will be made immediately available to your school. You will no longer need to submit paper versions of these forms to your school. NYCSA currently hosts the following forms:

• Media Consent For NYC Department of Education Use
• Request to Identify Parents on Active Duty in the Armed Forces
• Special Education Recovery Services Form (for students with IEPs only)

More forms will be added soon!

Adding Students 

You have to add students to the account in order to see more detailed information. Once you have done this, you can enjoy all the benefits your NYC Schools Account provides. 

If you do not have a creation code, or the school did not send you a letter about NYCSA, you will have to register in-person or teleconference into a school. Use the Find a School tool to get your child’s school’s contact and location information. 

• To register at school, bring a valid photo ID (like your passport, driver’s license, or IDNYC) and your child’s nine-digit student ID number, which can be found on your child’s report card. 
• To register over teleconference, your child’s school will verify you or your child’s identity by voice or sight. 

You can add other students to your account as well, using the same process as above.

Sharing Access 

You can invite other adults—like relatives or a tutor—to see information about your child on NYCSA. Some of the information on NYCSA is private, so be careful about who you invite. 

To invite someone to NYCSA, log into your account and click on the Manage User Access page, to send an invitation to that adult’s email address. They will be prompted to enter your child’s nine- digit student ID and an Account Creation Code. 

From this page, you can control how much information other users are able to see. You can assign a user to one of three roles: 

• Custodial users can see all information available about a child in your NYCSA account. Parents have this level when they register an account. 
• Noncustodial users can only see part of the information available. 
• Additional users can only see information the custodial user lets you see. 

If you were invited to access a NYCSA account and suddenly see less information than you are used to, it means someone changed your role. 

Resetting Student Passwords

How to Reset Your Child’s Password in NYCSA

You can reset your student password easily by following these instructions:

1. Click on Settings.
2. Click on Student Password.
3. Select the child whose password you want to update.
4. Enter a new password. Your password must:
   • Contain between 8–32 characters.
   • Contain at least one number (0–9).
   • Contain at least one lowercase letter (a–z).
   • Contain at least one uppercase letter (A–Z).
5. Retype the new password.
6. Click on Save.
7. That’s it! Your password has been reset.

Contact Information

If you are a parent who lives with your child, or if you are a custodial guardian, you can update your own home, cell, and work phone numbers and email address of yourself or other additional adults on your child’s record in your NYC Schools Account, using the Emergency Contact page. You also have the option to update your preferred written or spoken language. 

You can also update your child’s health information to share with your child’s school. This includes your child’s physician name and phone number, any known diagnoses, allergies, limitations that may limit physical activity, and health insurance status.  

You can also add additional emergency contacts to your student’s record within NYCSA. You can provide information for a grandparent, sibling, a relative like an aunt or uncle, and non-relative such as a tutor to be added in case of emergencies. You can also select if they are authorized to pick up your child from school.

The cell phone number you provide will be used by the DOE to contact you directly in the event of an emergency. We recommend reaching out to your child’s school to confirm that their records reflect your updated contact information and preferences. 

When you sign in to your NYCSA account, you will see a pop-up message reminding you to update your emergency contact information. You may click Update Now to go directly to the Emergency Contact page. Once completed, select “Verified” at the top of the page. 

If you need to update your home address, update siblings on your child’s record, or update order of protection information, you must contact your school directly to make the change(s), as this feature is not yet available.

Bullying Reporting

Report an incident 

If your child is a target of bullying, report the incident to your school’s Respect for All liaison. Use the Bullying Portal feature to report incidents of student-to-student discrimination, intimidation, and harassment. Please see the Fostering Anti-Bullying Practices page to learn more. 

Grades, Attendance, and Messaging Family Guide 

The DOE Grades application is an electronic gradebook for teachers.

• Teachers can create and grade assignments while maintaining all data fully secure and within the DOE.
• Teachers can import assignments from our school’s Learning Management System, [iLearn/Google Classroom], meaning that teachers will not have to do duplicate data entry.
• Students will be able to see assignments and assignment-level grades from the DOE Grades application in TeachHub in the fall.
• Parents will be able to see assignments and assignment-level grades in the NYC Schools Account (NYCSA) Portal in the fall.

DOE Attendance is an electronic attendance tool.

• Families already have access to their child’s attendance in NYC Schools Account (NYCSA) Portal.
• Teachers and school administrators will be able to quickly and securely update student attendance throughout the day.

The new DOE Messaging application offers multiple methods for outreach to families, such as voice calls, emails, and SMS texts.

• Our school staff will be able to send families messages by course/class, by grade, or even to the entire school.
• Messages can be sent in English and the nine DOE languages

Family access to DOE Grades in NYCSA 

For families to access a student assignment grades the process is as follows:

Step 1 – Go to NYCSA (New York City School Accounts) – https://www. schoolsaccount.nyc/ (if you do not have an NYCSA Account please contact your school for login information.) and sign into your account.

Step 2 – Click on the MyStudent card on the left side of the screen towards the top.

Step 3 – Please select the “SELECT” button below the name of the student to continue.

Step 4 – Select the Assignments tile next to the Grades tile at the top of the page.

• In the Grades tile you will find course level grades and report cards both current and past.
• In the Assignments tile you will find the assignments for those classes/courses with the grades for each assignment.

Step 5 – You can now see the entire list of assignments for the student.

You can narrow your view by selecting one of the 4 pull down menus at the top of the view.

• Term
• Marking Period
• Subject/Course
• Category

Please Note that grades will be available for listed assignments after the teacher for that course releases the grades for parent/student view.

Accessing DOE Grades for Students

Students in NYC DOE schools that are using the new NYC DOE Grades application will be able to view their courses, assignments, and assignment grades in TeachHub. To access these new features, please follow the steps below. For support, contact your school’s administration.

Step 1 – Go To TeachHub and log in using your DOE Email address (@nycstudents.net)

Step 2 – At the top bar select the MyDashboard Tab (second or third tab from the left)

Step 3 – Select the Student Grades card to begin.

Step 4 – Your Courses for the school year will appear. You may view your grades by course and by marking period. Please select a course to get more information on your assignments/grades for that course.

Classes will be color coded to show at a glance the status of that student in that class.

• Green – Passing
• Red – Not Passing

Step 5 – You will see your grades for all assignments that have been assigned a grade and those that remain ungraded. Assignments will be color coded to show at a glance the grade you have received.

• Green – Passed
• Red – Not Passed
• Grey – Ungraded or no grades released

Note: You may search for grades by term or marking period in the drop down menu.

Parent University

Learn and become an advocate 

Parent University offers training, coaching, and other resources for families to help you advocate for the educational success of your children. Take courses and modules and even gain certificates. 

Security 

The information stored in NYCSA is secured and protected by 128-bit SSL encryption. Information about your child is protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (Open external link) (FERPA).  

Get Help

Want to opt-in to receive communications from your school, district, and/or citywide parent leader volunteers?

• Go to “Manage Account” and selecting Stay Connected to begin receiving messages from your parent leaders. 

Having trouble accessing your account, or have forgotten your password?

• Use the “Forgot your password?” link on the sign-in page to reset it.
• If the problem continues, contact your child’s school.

If any of the information you see about your child in NYC Schools Account is incorrect, contact your child’s school. 

For any questions about your access to another child’s NYC Schools Account, we encourage you to speak with that child’s parent. 

Contact Us 

If you have questions about your child’s NYC Schools Account, contact your child’s school or call 311.

You can also use the “Feedback” feature on the bottom of each page. 

We invite you to provide feedback using the Suggestions form. The link is found at the bottom of the page once you are signed into the Account.

Printable Resources

NYC Schools Account Parent Flyer

This flyer is a printable document for you and your child’s school use as a quick reference guide to create an NYC Schools Account.

NYC Schools Account Creation Code Letter (SAMPLE)

The letter containing your child’s unique NYC Schools Account Creation Code will look similar to this sample letter:

My Home School Grades – Track Classes & Activities

My Home School Grades – Track Classes & Activities

The premier planning, grading, and tracking program built with the features and tools your family needs to create a safe and secure web-based record of your educational journey.

Manage Your Student’s Grades

Keeping track of grades is no longer a headache. We average grades and determine GPA’s so you can throw away the calculator. You can enter a number grade or a letter grade, it’s your choice. There’s even an option to assign lessons without grading them, which is perfect for the younger ones. No more groaning about grades.

Use Your Curriculum & Lesson Plans

Choose from our extensive curriculum collection or add your own. Copy a class from one student to another (great for siblings that are close together in age) or add multiple students to one class (great for families with multiples or co-ops) Add notes to individual lessons and print a lesson plan to encourage independent learning.

Track Extracurricular Activities

From 4-H to community service projects and everything in between, My Home School Grades tracks your involved student. My Home School Grades allows you to show how well rounded your student is and how they are ready to take on the world!

Print Official, College Ready Transcripts

Our transcripts are being accepted by colleges and universities across North America! You can be confident that your student’s educational journey will be professionally presented, with all the necessary information for whatever the future holds.

Download Sample

Plan Your Home School Day Your Way

See your lessons side by side with your events for the day. Schedule individual or recurring events. Quickly move forward in time to see what you need to prepare for. Rescheduling a lesson? Our planner can automatically reschedule the dates of future lessons so you won’t have to worry.

Track Your Attendance

My Home School Grades tracks attendance either by the day or by hours per day. Easily generate reports that may be necessary for your state or local reporting requirements. Attendance is color coded by student so you can tell at a glance whether you’ve missed a day.

Document Your Journey

My Home School Grades allows you to professionally report what you’ve accomplished. Our ever expanding library of document options give you the flexibility to provide as much, or as little information as needed to meet state or local reporting requirements.

Testimonials

I used to create my kid’s transcripts by hand, but not anymore! My Home School Grades makes the process so simple, I can even update assignments and their transcripts from my phone when we’re on the go! As if that isn’t great enough, a college admissions officer told my daughter that her transcript from My Home School Grades was the most professional she’s ever seen. I highly recommend My Home School Grades to everyone who home schools!

Meg G. home school mom of 6

My Home School Grades helps keep our family on track with where we are going. I had all the information stored in my head. I was able to put all that information into the system. That freed up a lot of brain space! Now I don’t have to wonder where we are and how we are progressing. I love My Home School Grades!

Ann E. home school mom of 2

I’m so incredibly grateful for My Home School Grades! I was worried sick about how to track my son’s high school activities. I’m not worried anymore!

Kristen G. home school mom of 1

I love that I can keep all of my kid’s school and activity information in one place. It helps me stay organized!

Amy M. home school mom of 4

My Home School Grades is a wonderfully intuitive program that makes keeping up with grades a breeze. I enjoy the peace of mind it affords me due to the ease of use and flexibility. I would highly recommend it, in fact I will, to all my home school friends in Texas!

Lynn B. home school mom of 2

I love everything about My Home School Grades! It has made my life so much easier as we approach middle and high school. My Home School Grades fills a huge gap that has been missing for home school families!

Michele H. home school mom of 4

My Home School Grades is definitely a godsend. When I first subscribed, I had a senior and an 8th grader at home. Having My Home School Grades gave me peace of mind, knowing that my kids’ grades were on my account and secure. Moreover, I was able to have a professional-looking transcript for my son when he graduated!

Dee D. home school mom of 2

I am so glad I found My Home School grades! It helps keep me organized and it is easy to use. I like the fact that I can generate a professional looking transcript at the end. I would highly recommend this program to a friend!

Wendy F. home school mom of 3

I had created a spreadsheet to track my children’s transcript information, but my wife was always confused by it. Your software made the work of building a transcript so easy for her – inputting information, seeing results – that it was a “no brainer” for me to support. Instead of me being the middle man in transcript production (she does most of the home schooling for our family) now she can input information when she wants and has no hesitation at all with using your software. Kudos for making such an easy to use product!

Greg B. home school dad of 6

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Essay on “School assessment”

“School assessment”

The word “assessment” accompanies each of us throughout life. Internal assessment, when we ourselves consider ourselves under the prism of various criteria: appearance, character, manners, actions, addictions. There is an external assessment, when people around us put points: relatives, acquaintances, friends, relatives, and sometimes completely strangers.

For the first time we meet evaluation in the womb. Yes, yes, already there we are evaluated by various parameters and even put up points. After, evaluation meets us in the family. Parents voluntarily or involuntarily compare the child with any standards. Fictional, invented or actually existing. But most closely, consciously and painfully, we encounter evaluation at school.

Coming to the first grade on September 1, the child is already ready for the fact that twos, threes and fives will fly into him. At home, the parents did explanatory work. It is clear to every kid that mom and dad want to see only the number “5”, in extreme cases “4”. And all in order to also evaluate the child as “well done” or “clever”. Following this, the child will set himself an internal “number” in the form of a judgment “I can” or “loser” if something goes wrong. Vicious circle.

Parents, and children, also highly appreciate just numbers. Mistakenly believing that it is in them that the key to success and a bright, prosperous future. Sometimes, in the race for a high score, knowledge, talents, desires, personality are relegated to the background.

We teachers also add fuel to the fire. We need indicators, high results, percentages. Again, everything revolves around numbers. Yes, we give knowledge and this seems to be paramount for us. But, only at first glance. Remember that bitter feeling when, after a test, most of the students in the class get a “2”. The first thing that comes to our mind is “I’m a bad teacher”, “children are difficult”, “there are only lazy people around”, etc. And only then, on reflection, we can come to the conclusion that the material was difficult, requiring more time to master, the guys were tired or in a bad mood and in general, the day was not suitable. And yes, a large number of unsatisfactory grades does not at all indicate the personality of the student or teacher. It only shows weaknesses and indicates the direction of growth. In the head, ideally, of course, thoughts about improving processes, creativity, growth and progress appear. A completely different color and mood, isn’t it?

School evaluation should stop being a stick or a carrot. Its role is much more important and deeper. The assessment should show all participants in the educational process the trajectory of development and growth. We need to stop confusing numbers and personality.

Parents will stop demanding fives when they realize that the grade is only an indicator of the formation of criteria, and not an indicator of the child’s success or failure in life. Children will stop hiding diaries and blocking electronic journals when they realize that their parents love them unconditionally. Students should be aware that the teacher, when grading, evaluates skills and abilities, and not a specific person. Having received “2”, the child should strive for improvement and growth, and not become discouraged and give up. Teachers, when evaluating students, must abandon the personal approach. Evaluate the criteria, not the person. We all need to stop using evaluation as a punishment or reward tool. It is necessary to launch an assessment as a mechanism for development, growth, improvement and progress.

Let’s separate numbers and personality. As a result, we live and exist, for the time being, in the world of people, emotions, feelings, and not machines and lack of spirituality.

Learning assessment or learning assessment? – Teacher’s newspaper

The existing system of school assessments is familiar to us and seems to be an integral attribute of the school. However, in pedagogy, more and more people talk about an alternative assessment system. A new approach is needed because the old one has colossal shortcomings.

The whole family got an A

Azamat Musagaliev in the show Talk vividly described one of the main shortcomings of the traditional system of assessing students’ achievements in school:

– My daughter got an A for the first time. The youngest daughter, she is in the second grade. She came in tears. And at that moment, when she came home and said that she got a deuce, we all got a deuce. Sixteen hours (I timed): the family collapsed. She is crying. The wife yells at the elder, because she did not report to her, did not check her lessons. The older one is crying. I say

– Why are you yelling at her, what is her fault?

– Why are you undermining my authority in front of the children?

– I’m not undermining authority, I came to ask what I should do next. Continue watching TV?

Childhood trauma

Here is another story of world chess champion Sergey Karyakin. Many years after graduation, he recalled with bewilderment how he was given a “4” for an essay. He put his whole soul into an essay on the topic “How I spent the summer”, but received a “4” for it. He was so upset that he still remembers this incident and calls it his childhood trauma.
Curiously, around the same time, at the age of 12, Karjakin became the youngest grandmaster in history and got into the Guinness Book of Records.

Disadvantages

I will try to briefly formulate the main disadvantages of the existing assessment system:
Causes stress in children. And effective learning requires relaxation and a sense of security. That is why the old
SanPiNs prohibited scoring in the 1st grade.
Often the assessment is subjective, controversial and incomprehensible. It is impossible to achieve complete objectivity.
Provokes conflicts between all participants in educational relations: students, teachers, parents, administration.

Weak differentiation: only 4 points – “2”, “3”, “4”, “5”. Since the teacher then needs to correct the deuces himself, the teachers try not to use this assessment. That is, the system is actually a three-point system.

Labels students: loser, triple student, shock student, excellent student.

Emphasizes shortcomings in the student’s actions, mistakes, rather than strengths and achievements.

Orientation to some abstract statistical norms, rather than to the individual dynamics of the student. That is, a child can make one less mistake today than yesterday, and tomorrow one less mistake than today, but each time he will receive the same mark. Then why should a child make an effort?

Minimum opportunity for student self-assessment.

Does not motivate academic achievement. Evaluation is a tool of punishment. The child seeks to avoid a bad grade, not to gain knowledge.

Grades, not knowledge, become the center of school life and all participants in educational relations. Ron Clark put it this way: “Many parents would prefer a good education with excellent grades for their children instead of an outstanding education with fair grades.”

Extremely limited feedback.

Let’s dwell on the last point in more detail.

Feedback

School grades should perform a feedback function, which is extremely important in the learning process. But how well does our 4-point scoring system perform this function?

Take, for example, my previous article in Teacher’s Gazette, Let the Children Do What They Want (No. 51, December 21, 2021). This is an analogue of a typical school situation, like an essay on the topic “How I spent the summer”, which was written by Sergey Karyakin. In the comments to the article, readers can rate this text. More or less informative for me will be only a rating of “5”: it means that the reader liked everything. Although in this case there are no recommendations for improving the text. And you can always improve the text.

A score of 2, 3, or 4 raises more questions than it answers. These ratings mean that the person did not like something. But what exactly didn’t you like? What is the problem with the text? What can be improved? Estimates do not provide answers to these questions.

If grammatical errors are made, what rules should be repeated in order not to make mistakes next time? Just pointing out that there is an extra comma in the text is not enough to improve my literacy.

Good feedback looks very different and consists of two elements. First: correcting errors – grammatical, stylistic. The logical conclusion from these errors should be educational recommendations, for example, to repeat the theme of separate and hyphenated spelling of particles, pleonasms and tautologies.

Second: recommendations for improving content. For example, once a literature teacher at school, after checking essays, praised my essay, noting that it was written in an adult way: I took and confidently expressed a clear position on some moral issue. Accordingly, she noted a shortcoming in my classmates: it is written in a childish way, the correct general words, but it is boring to read. You need to have the courage to take and express your position.

This feedback, showing what can be fixed and improved, is informative to me. Such high-quality feedback would not have caused childhood trauma for Sergey Karjakin. And the assessments only cause bewilderment and spoil the mood.

A specific example of two types of feedback on the same school essay. Good feedback: “Well done, excellent!” To improve grammar, repeat the theme of isolating participles. To improve the content, maybe next time you should describe at least one joint activity with parents during the summer holidays? Bad feedback: “4”.

Concepts

Pedagogical science has corresponding terms for two approaches to feedback.

The existing system is called ascertaining assessment, final assessment, learning assessment.

Qualitative feedback is called formative assessment, non-grading system, assessment for learning.

The terms “assessment of learning” and “assessment for learning” are particularly revealing. They very well reflect the essential difference between the two approaches. We evaluate the learning activities of the guys for what?
For their training and development? Or for the needs of the bureaucracy?

Evaluation for learning

Evaluation for learning is obviously much more effective than evaluation for learning, since it is free from many of the latter’s shortcomings:
there are no labels. All students succeed at something and something does not work, and everyone tries to develop their competencies. Everyone competes with yesterday’s selves, and not with some abstract general standards;
assessment is more objective and understandable;
it is possible and necessary to actively involve students in assessing their own educational achievements. This is the most important and obligatory element of the system-activity approach;
focus on student’s individual dynamics;
much less reasons and reasons for conflicts;
motivates for development, gaining knowledge, not conditional points;
quality feedback, specific and constructive.

MSUPE Professor E.N. Zemlyanskaya in the scientific article “Formative assessment (assessment for learning) of educational achievements of students” makes a general conclusion: “Theoretical studies and experience of a number of countries in the application of formative assessment have shown that it turned out to be one of the most effective ways to improve educational achievement of each student, as well as to reduce the distance between the most successful students and students with severe learning difficulties.

Officials

A legitimate question may arise here: if the assessment of training is so bad, then why is it applied, and the excellent assessment for training is not applied? Answer: because the assessment of training is convenient for officials.

Bureaucrats need to manage the education system. With assessment for learning, this is problematic.

Imagine, for example, that once every six months for each child, the school submits a testimonial to the education authority, for example, not exceeding one page. There are 20 schools in the area. Each school has 1000 students. In this situation, the specialist of the district department of education receives 20,000 pages containing data on the learning dynamics of students.
Even if all characteristics are written according to a single structure, it is difficult to analyze such a large amount of data.

Another thing is tables that contain only 4 variants of numbers. These numbers can be sorted in ascending and descending order. They can be filtered by certain criteria. You can calculate the proportion of poor students, shock students, good students and excellent students.

You can also calculate such an indicator as the quality of education. This is the ratio of the sum of good students and excellent students to the total number of students, expressed as a percentage.

And if you need to find out the percentage of progress, then you should add up the excellent students, good students and three students and divide by the total number of children.

We also hear the average score: add up the marks in all subjects and divide by the number of marks. Can be calculated individually, for a class, for a parallel.

An experienced bureaucrat can perform an infinite number of operations and transformations with these 4 types of numbers, build graphs and reports, and come up with indicators derived from them. This is a real paradise for an official. On plates of 4 types of numbers, you can build a career without getting up from your chair.

Based on the analysis of school grades, education bureaucrats make managerial decisions. For example, when there was a fight against fraud in the USSR, officials did not encourage high grades for schoolchildren. Then the idea arose that all children should be successful in learning, and officials began to fight with deuces.

The 4-point assessment of learning is incredibly primitive and convenient for bureaucrats. And they create the system.

Balance

It is best, of course, to use both learning assessment and learning assessment.

Evaluation for learning should be at the heart of the daily learning process. Throughout the entire elementary school, it is advisable to use only it.

In elementary and secondary schools, learning can be assessed, for example, once every quarter or half a year.

There needs to be a reasonable balance between teaching and learning assessment. Everything has its time. There should be study time and exam time. We have an exam every day, every action is graded: every exit to the board, every answer, every homework. Daily assessment of learning is terrorizing children.

Summary

The purpose of this article is to reduce the enthusiasm of parents, children and teachers about grades. Often I watch fierce battles for grades and do not understand what their value is.

A few years ago, I taught seventh graders a series of sessions on the “seven habits of highly effective students” aimed at developing personal and meta-subject results. I told the children that these seven skills will help them be successful in all areas of life and in all activities.

A skeptical, sad-looking student asked how these seven skills would help her pass the CDF. I replied that they would be very helpful. The second skill is called “Start with the end in mind.” What is the purpose of schooling? Be smart and educated.

The goal to get a grade or pass a CDF is wrong. If your goal is to get an estimate, then you can, for example, write off. In this case, you will spend time, energy, effort and get an assessment. You won’t become smart and educated, but you will get an assessment.

If you spend all your energy on gaining knowledge, then you will automatically get good grades and good results in VPR.