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Eighth-Graders to have
access to grades through Skyward
By: Lisa Magers
Cleburne ISD Community Services
February 2, 2010
Eighth-graders have become the first grade-level section to complete training in
the student portal of Cleburne ISD’s Skyward administrative software program.
Wheat and Smith middle school eighth-graders will now have viewing rights to their grades,
attendance, TAKS scores assignments and other data, as do parents who have registered
and been trained on using Skyward Family Access.
“We decided to train eighth-graders
first because they will use Skyward later this year to register for the electives
they want to take next year as freshman,” said Annette Reband, a member of the CISD
Technology Department who coordinated the student training. “That registration will
take place in March and April and we wanted to go ahead and get them familiar with
the program.”
Before the Christmas holidays, Reband conducted a trial run on her
training presentation of the Skyward student portal with two Cleburne High School
senior English classes.
“We now have about 600 CHS students signed up and accessing
the program as a result of that small-group training,” Reband said. “The word quickly
spread from those 60 seniors as to what the feature was for and where and how to
register. I think access to their class assignments and grades is a great attraction.”
Annette Reband, standing, a member of the CISD Technology Department, discusses a
feature of the Skyward Student Access portal with a Wheat Middle School eighth-grader
during Friday’s training session. The district’s eighth-graders are the first student
section to receive training in the Skyward Student software.
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“Our hopes in providing students with this software is to give them a chance to
turn things around, if they are having trouble with a particular concept or class,
before things get down to the wire. They won’t have to wait until the third-week
progress report before they know their grades and average. They’ll be able to get
with their teacher for help or extra-credit work early in the reporting period.”
On Friday afternoon, the final group of eighth-graders to receive Skyward training
jumped from electronic page to electronic page as they looked at everything from
their latest grade postings to upcoming classroom assignments and projects.
“This is easy,” said Wheat eighth-grader Anna Govea. “I like that I can check on things
before my mom does, although she uses Skyward Family Access.”
Fellow eighth-grader Brayden Bankston also gave the software a “thumbs up” for user-friendliness and
its information value.
“It’s easy to look stuff up if I’m missing something in my
assignments,” he said. “I’m going to tell my mom about this so she can get signed
up, too.”
Reband said she believes the student portal will have an impact on the
number of parents requesting a password and training for Skyward Family Access.
“I think it will be a promotion for more parents signing up,” she said. “That and
the fact that it will help students stay more on top of their progress is our main
reason for adding the student portal.”
Students will also have the capability of e-mailing their teachers through the use of Skyward.
“You can’t change anything posted in Skyward,” Reband told the eighth-graders. “But you can tell your parents
if you feel a grade or an absence is incorrect. They are the ones who should then
notify your teacher. You can also e-mail your teacher, but it needs to be important,
like asking about a specific assignment, not just saying hi.”
A coming attraction to the Skyward student portal will be a portfolio feature where achievements, honors
and participation in special projects will be included in student information.
“By the time you are a senior,” Reband told students, “You’ll be able to use the portfolio
to help you write your résumé for college or for getting a job.”
For information on Skyward Student and Family Access visit www.cleburne.k12.tx.us and look under
Parent Resources.
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