It can enhance levels of parent engagement like never before and it makes transparency a top priority.
On this episode of the Supercast, we have everything you need to know about successfully using Skyward Family Access. It’s a cloud-based student information system, which allows you to access your child’s daily attendance, progress reports, grades, lunch balance and more. We have tips to make using Skyward really easy and worry free.
Audio Transcription
Anthony Godfrey:
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It can enhance levels of parent engagement like never before and make transparency easy. On this episode of the Supercast, we have everything you need to know about successfully using Skyward Family Access. It's a cloud-based student information system, which allows you to access your child's daily attendance, progress reports, grades, lunch balance, and more. We have tips to make using Skyward really easy and worry free. We are here in the studio with Steffany Ellsworth, from our Information Systems department to talk about Skyward Family Access. Steffany, thanks for joining us.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now, Skyward is something we use for all kinds of things. And the old system for those who've been around for a long time was called Delta. We went through a big bid process. I remember there was lots of committee work. We needed a system that could take care of everything. You could find separate systems that could do things well, but we wanted one system that could really do everything we needed to do from an Information System standpoint. So that we have payroll, employment, financial, student information, and family information. What else is in there?
Steffany Ellsworth:
Employees can look at their paychecks. We have our teacher grade books.
Anthony Godfrey:
It's all there.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Communication. We can communicate using Skylert through Skyward. It's all there.
Anthony Godfrey:
One stop shopping. So I want to talk first off just about Skyward Family Access and the ways that that can help empower parents to be a part of their students' education. I think through COVID, we've had a really difficult time staying connected with parents. We've sent them lots of emails and Skylerts with bullet points and things like that, but we haven't been able to involve parents to the degree that we like to, because we haven't been able to have everyone in the building that we'd like to have there. And just over time, we've lost a little bit of connection that I really want to regain. And even move beyond where we were before, in engaging with families and parents. So, that's really what I want to start with. I know there are lots of features within Skyward Family Access that may be overlooked, that maybe people don't realize are available to them. And by managing and maximizing the options available through Skyward Family Access, parents can really be more involved in their child's education.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes, absolutely. Skyward can be used to communicate with parents. Parents can email their teachers, they can go in and sign up for notifications within Skyward. Attendance notifications, low lunch balance notifications, get progress reports on their students. They can view their student’s grades, student’s attendance, schedules, calendar for the school year, see their student’s report cards. They can even plan for the future. We have arena scheduling where they can go in and see their student’s future schedule or add and drop classes depending on what their students need for graduation. They can view grad graduation requirements within Skyward and just overall create a plan for their current and future school years within Jordan School District. I know one frustration that many families have is that teachers like to use all sorts of different applications. We have Remind and Canvas and Skyward, and you know, you have to go in and sign up for this account or that account. And then they're getting emails and text messages from many different sources. Whereas, you know, you gather it all within Skyward and you have one login. You can communicate with all teachers and see all of your students from every different school within Skyward.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now, just to answer some basic questions about Skyward, the parent login is the same for all of their students. They log in once and all their student information is right there for their entire family.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes, it is. If any parents are seeing that it is not set up that way something has gone wrong at the school and they just need to contact their school to make sure that they've been added correctly in Skyward. But yes, they should be able to login and see every single student within their family.
Anthony Godfrey:
Let's talk about that login specifically. There are some folks who have had kids in the system and maybe they now have guardianship later or grandkids who are coming through and they want to register and their old email address is still in Skyward. So they try to sign up and it says this email has already been taken or it's already in our system. What should somebody do if they've been in the system for a long time and they kind of need a refresh.
Steffany Ellsworth:
If they've been in the system before they can usually contact the school and we can reset a login and a password for them. If they've never been in the system, we actually have a link on the Jordan District website, under Parents and Students, Registration, and Enrollment, and they can sign up for a new temporary account to get their students enrolled for the first time. And then they'll get a permanent account once their students have been enrolled in the school. So, they can either create a temporary account or they can contact the school to get help logging in if they've had a previous account.
Anthony Godfrey:
So contacting the school, they can help reset that account and going to jordandistrict.org, Parents and Students, and then what was the next tab after that?
Steffany Ellsworth:
Registration and Enrollment. There's links there to create a new temporary account for parents that haven't had access before. Students new to the district, you know, coming from outside our district, just moved in, maybe they're returning from a charter school or homeschool. They can enroll students there using that temporary link.
Anthony Godfrey:
So that's the way you get started in Skyward if you're not already in the system.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Yep.
Anthony Godfrey:
Then once you're in, then, like you said, there's a long list of available functions for families. Let's talk about notifications. What are some of the things that you can sign up to receive automatically throughout the year, updates about your child?
Steffany Ellsworth:
You can receive attendance notifications. So anytime your student misses a class or the entire day, you can get notified that they were absent from class.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now let's talk about how that notification comes. Do they have options on which ways that they receive that notification?
Steffany Ellsworth:
They do. They can log into their account within Skyward and set whether they prefer to receive them through email, through a phone number. They can also add additional guardians to receive those notifications.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. Could you add an additional guardian during a particular period of time and then take back out of Skyward after like, if you have a different work schedule or you're out of town or something like that?
Steffany Ellsworth:
The notifications yes. You can turn those on and off as you see fit. Yep.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, great. What other types of notifications besides attendance are available?
Steffany Ellsworth:
There's also low lunch balance notifications and you can set the dollar amount. You get to choose what dollar, if it goes below $5, I want to get notified. Or if it's below $10, I want to get notified. You can turn those on or off. And you can also set them to send you an email as well.
Anthony Godfrey:
So then you are made aware in advance that your child needs some additional lunch money in the old account, which is particularly important now because we've been used to universal free lunch for a couple of years. And those alerts are gonna be really important as we enter a new era where lunch is not free for everyone anymore.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Definitely. And I think it's important for parents to keep in mind that possibly at one point they might have turned those off knowing that the lunches were free. So it'll be important to go back in and check that and make sure they get them turned back on.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, good reminder. Yeah. What else alert wise is available to parents?
Steffany Ellsworth:
You can get progress reports sent to you. If you want them set up weekly, monthly, daily, you can sign up to have progress reports. That'll show your students assignments, what they've handed in, what they're missing and what grades they've received on those assignments.
Anthony Godfrey:
So you can set that and decide how frequently you get those notifications. And that includes all of the grades. Is the attendance a part of that or is that only the separate notification?
Steffany Ellsworth:
Just that separate notification. Yep. And then we also have Skylert. Skylert is the system that our schools use to mass send messages out. They can send them through email, phone or text messages. Within Skyward, families can choose which phone numbers they want those Skylert messages to go to, what email addresses, and if they want to receive text messages.
Anthony Godfrey:
And this is a good time of year, really any time of year is a good time, to double check those and make sure you're receiving those messages the way that you want to. I know that we needed to do the same thing at a certain point because I was getting notifications that my wife wanted to get. So we just made sure we were both getting all of those notifications. So if there is a frustration with thinking, ‘Hey, I'm not getting communications from the school’ or it's the wrong phone number, wrong email address. I do hear that on a fairly frequent basis. Just jump into that account and double check what those settings are and make sure that it's something that'll work for you.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Yep. Once they log into Skyward, there's a link on the left hand side called Skylert. They'll just check their emails, phone numbers, and text messages there.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. The Skylert link on the left hand side. And where do they find the alerts for attendance and grades and for the lunch deposit?
Steffany Ellsworth:
Once they go under My Account, there's a link for notifications there that they can go in and decide which notifications they wanna be signed up for.
Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us. When we come back, did you know you can access Skyward on your mobile phone? Find out how when we return.
Break:
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Anthony Godfrey:
To coin a very old advertising motto. There's an app for that, right?
Steffany Ellsworth:
There is an app for that, yes. It's really nice to have the Skyward app so that on the go, you can check your students' attendance, their grades. You can communicate through the notifications. You can check to see if you have any notifications from teachers just on the go. And there is a link that I will provide on how to download that app.
Anthony Godfrey:
What are some of the misunderstandings maybe that are out there about Skyward?
Steffany Ellsworth:
I think probably one of the biggest misunderstandings is, you know, students submit a lot of their work through Canvas and they may see a grade in Canvas. They may see a score in Canvas, but Skyward is our official grade book. So although they're submitting work through Canvas and teachers are grading it in Canvas, those scores are then transferred back over to Skyward. So Skyward's the official grade book, whatever grade is in Skyward is the grade that's gonna be posted on a report card and on a transcript. Canvas is only the means to deliver and score and teachers to store their lesson plans. And that's where students will go in and turn in their work. But the actual score is kept within Skyward and that's our official grade book.
Anthony Godfrey:
And I do know that can be confusing because students right before a weekend are trying to convince parents that yes, I have done all of the work. Even though it's not showing in Skyward, I should get to go out because it is in Canvas. So parents might want to check Canvas to see that an assignment has been completed in Canvas, but hasn't yet been transferred over to Skyward. Students are not trying to pull a fast one. If they say that it is actually accurate, that it can be in Canvas, not in Skyward, but completed and turned into the teacher.
Steffany Ellsworth:
I have in fact had that conversation with my teenagers many times. So yes, the teachers manually push scores to Skyward. So until they've pushed that button within canvas to get the scores into Skyward, there may be a difference between the grades and the two systems.
Anthony Godfrey:
And some people ask, why isn't that automatic? But I think that gives them flexibility for the teacher to work with the student and say, let you redo this part or you're missing this part or let's make sure that that's an accurate score before we bring it over to Skyward.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Yep. That's right.
Anthony Godfrey:
There's a separate student login and a separate parent login for Skyward. Tell me about how those two interact and what parents need to know about that setup.
Steffany Ellsworth:
The main difference between the parent and student login, the parents are allowed to pay fees and complete registration for schools, enroll additional students if need be. Students don't really see anything dealing with fees in their login.
Anthony Godfrey:
But parents can see everything that students can see. There's nothing in the student portion that parents don't already have access to through their own account.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes. Some schools, when we have arena scheduling open, will not allow parents to arena schedule. Students can arena schedule, not all schools will allow parents to arena schedule on top of the students.
Anthony Godfrey:
I see.
Steffany Ellsworth:
But yes, for the most part, parents can see everything that students can see.
Anthony Godfrey:
Which is a tip for those parents who do have a student at a school where both accounts can get in. You can be logged in at the same time. One can work on A day. One can work on B day and you can get that schedule in place pretty quickly since it's kind of like buying concert tickets. As soon as it goes live, then everyone's trying for those preferred classes.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes. It’s like the Hunger Games. That is a good tip. It's a well known secret amongst the, you know, seniors and juniors, when they're arena scheduling. Get your parents logged in too and that they'll get, get sat down and go for it.
Anthony Godfrey:
And the arena scheduling really is set up to allow for maximum choice for parents and students so that they can not just request classes, but really build a schedule of their own. It does result in some high stakes refreshing of the page right before it goes live, but it does offer that opportunity. And it's worthwhile checking back later to see if spots have opened up. If as a student, you didn't get the exact classes you were hoping for.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Always. Yep. Check back as often as possible. And often schools will open arena scheduling in the summer too, right before school starts for students to make their own class changes, which is really nice instead of having to wait in line to see your counselor at the school.
Anthony Godfrey:
Right, right. Now we have supports available for those who need help with Skyward Family Access. How do they get help?
Steffany Ellsworth:
We do. The best resource for them is going to be to contact their schools. Each school has a number of people there that are available to reset their logins and passwords and help students get logged in. If they're not getting the help they need there, they can call our helpdesk at (801) 567-8737.
Anthony Godfrey:
And start with the school, but use the helpdesk if you still need some assistance beyond what the school is able to offer. And sometimes that's gonna happen in the summer. Might be difficult to reach someone, but we really want families to be able to access the information they need, get the setup they're looking for. If you have trouble changing any of the settings we described, then just reach out to the school, reach out to the helpdesk and get things squared away for the coming year.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Yep. The schools really are better equipped to verify that who they're speaking with should have access to the student information. Sometimes if they call our office, we do have to hang up and call the schools and try to get verification that we're speaking to who we should be. You know, we never wanna share student information with those that shouldn't have it.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. We're very cautious about that. What are some of the other features of Skyward Family Access that may be used less frequently?
Steffany Ellsworth:
Well, yearly rather than getting that big packet of paper sent home each year in the backpack that maybe you did or did not see, you can log in and do your Registration for School. That's where you'll verify all of your students' data. Make sure that their contact information, your contact information as a parent is updated. You'll sign the Network Acceptable Use Policy, the Chromebook agreement, just that big packet of papers you'd get, you can now do all of that online.
Anthony Godfrey:
I used to be responsible for creating that big packet of paper so I’m very grateful that it’s through Skyward.
Steffany Ellsworth:
And you have to make sure there are a lot of colored papers, different colors. The hot pink was the most important. Right?
Anthony Godfrey:
Exactly. The golden rod was less important, but the pink was crucial.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes. They can also make their lunch and fee payments. You know, if students are enrolled in extracurricular programs, they can pay those fees there as well. They can apply for a free and reduced lunch through the application that's available on Skyward. You can also schedule your parent teacher conferences. You know, we have parent teacher conferences twice yearly and you can log into Skyward and schedule those conferences with your teacher. See what time slots they have available and sign up when it's convenient for you.
Anthony Godfrey:
Fantastic. Well, I appreciate the features that Information Systems has added over the years to make things even more accessible to parents. And I don't know what we would do without Skylert messages. I know parents received a lot during the COVID era.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes. Yeah. We even during COVID we had to create some custom forms, you know, so the parents could, yeah. My student’s high risk or my students want a schedule change. Right. Or they wanna be virtual. All within Skyward.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. We made all of that work, and Information Systems has done a tremendous job throughoutthose difficult times, adapting and helping us communicate and shift and be flexible through all of this. So thank you for everything that you do and you personally are so supportive and so responsive when any of us need help. So I really appreciate that. Thanks for taking the time today. I think it'll be a big help to parents.
Steffany Ellsworth:
Thanks for having me. We're really excited about Skyward Family Access and how it can help parents to better engage with their students' school and teachers.
Anthony Godfrey:
If you have any questions about logging in and using Skyward, contact the help desk at 801-567-8737. Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.