Cleburne ISD
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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. Lisa Magers/CISD
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Eighth-graders to have access to grades through Skyward
— 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 freshmen,” 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.”
“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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