For the typical student that faithfully studies and completes assignments, it is often annoying for one to check up on PowerSchool to see that all of their time spent on general assignments had little-to-no-effect on increasing their final grade. On top of that, in the common instance of a student being absent from a day of school, it is especially jarring for one to witness their grade plummeting to a grade that appears nearly impossible to recover from.

For those unwilling to do math, one would generally ask, “How exactly are grades weighted,” and “How accurate are the grades in the grade-book?” Going even further, “Why is it taking my teacher forever to put in a simple assignment that I’d missed?” It would appear to many that every little assignment grade would have some noticeable change in their final grade, however, this is not the case for classes that have plenty of grades to balance each other out. By that point, a student must rely on test and quiz scores to influence one’s final grade at all. One must also consider how much a teacher decides to weigh a certain assignment in general, which also plays a huge factor.

As the semester is nearing its end, students must rely on their final exams, which are generally 10% of their grade, to determine what their final grades will be. Because of this, students reaching to increase (or prevent the depletion of) their grades are encouraged to study in advance and review old concepts. In other words, it gets real at this point.

I am one who personally detests math of any sort, but from my experience at Pattonville so far, I am in acquaintance with how the grade system works and even how teachers operate. Is PowerSchool rigged? No, not in the least, but its ways can be learned.