Getting Ready for a New School Year

Getting Ready for a New School Year

This article discusses items that schools should be conscious of to ensure Empower is set up and ready for the coming school year. 

Last Year's Scores

All scores in Empower are what we like to call "evergreen", meaning they do not get erased year to year, but rather stay connected to the student and available to reference forever. There is no action needed on the part of any user to archive scores or save scores.

Past scores will appear in appropriate places, such as when reviewing a student's progress on a standard. To view old groups and gradebooks, teachers can use the "time machine" on their scoring or instruction tab headers. Simply change the date in Empower to a date in the past and the groups and gradebooks will appear as they did on that date.

Planning

Having a solid plan is the best thing you can do for your implementation of Empower. It's a good chance to look at how far you've come with Empower and if you are getting all the value you can out of the system or if there are goals we can help you meet. Are your teachers ready to do some PD and go a bit deeper in their usage of the tools and implementation of the model? Do you have new staff or want to reinforce the basics with existing staff? Our team is available to discuss these questions with you and offer advice and resources. 

Call us at 727-373-2552 

Empower Implementation Planning

New clients with Empower set up an Empower Implementation Plan. Contact your Empower Representative to find out about reviewing or renewing your Empower Implementation Plan.

Setup

Beyond connecting to your SIS and populating your school's standards (both discussed below), there are several structures that can be built into Empower as a school advances in its implementation. Below is a list of the setup structures that are recommended to be in place and used for most schools. 
  1. Scoring
  2. Instruction
  3. Courses
  4. Course Pace
  5. Student Portal
  6. My Learning Tab

Data

Is student data going to flow to Empower automatically on the first day of school or are there things schools need to do? 
If you have a data sync connected between the SIS and Empower and haven't requested that it be paused for any reason, then it can be assumed those connections remain in place. If you'd like to check on your data or have our team confirm that the channels are open and ready, read on. 

Check the Data

There are a few places you can check for users in Empower. Which you use depends on what you're checking for. 

Trouble Shooting

If the data isn't looking as expected, use the decision tree below to troubleshoot the issue. Get more help from Empower's Helpdesk. 
 











Request More Help with Data
To learn more about user data and connections in Empower, see our Data Article. 
If you'd like our team to check and confirm that data connections are active, submit a ticket to  Empower's Helpdesk. 
For anything else, please feel free to contact your Empower representative.

Standards

The standards are foundational to everything that is done in Empower. Are you needing to do any revisions to the standards between school years? What are the implications and ramifications? How do we honor past scores when the standards change? Which tools are used? 

This article can help with some of those questions. Others require more nuanced answers informed by your particular set of circumstances and needs. Your Empower representative would be happy to discuss those and other questions directly with you and shepherd you through these revisions.