Teacher Comments

Teacher comments are useful for communicating information about a student's achievements and behavior. You can set up a predefined comment bank and define comment lengths in the Comment Bank. Teacher comments can be entered in PowerTeacher Pro manually or you can use the district's predefined comment banks or your personal comment bank. Once entered, teacher comments can be viewed in PowerSchool SIS, the PowerSchool SIS Student and Parent portal, and PowerTeacher Pro.

Comment Bank

Use the comment bank to create and maintain a collection of ready-to-use comments that teachers can then apply in PowerTeacher Pro.

Comment banks with 2,000 or more comments may cause the Grade Inspector in PowerTeacher Pro to load slowly.

Manage Comments in the Comment Bank

1. Navigate to the Comment Bank page. 

2. Click New. 

3. Enter a numeric, alphabetical, or alphanumeric code.

4. Enter a category to which you want to assign your comment.

5. Select an option to display this comment for all schools on this server or only the selected school.

6. Use smart text to simplify comment entry and personalize standardized comments. Read more about using Smart Text in the following section.

7. Enter the comment text, which can include smart text, hyperlinks, and some HTML.

8. Click Submit. 

Once a comment is created, you can edit or delete the comment by selecting the one you want to update and then editing or deleting it.

Use Smart Text

Smart text may be inserted into a comment, which will then be auto-populated when the comment is used. For example, rather than entering "Student making steady progress academically," you can personalize the comment by entering "<first name> is making steady progress academically," which translates to "Kate is making steady progress academically."

To add smart text to a comment, place the cursor in the Comment Text field where you want to add the smart text, and then choose one of the following smart text options:

Student Names

• <first name> - translates to PSM_Student.Firstname

• <last name, first name> - translates to PSM_Student.LastName, PSM_Student.FirstName

• <first name last name> - translates to PSM_Student.Firstname PSM_Student.LastName

• <preferred name> - translates to the Preferred Name in the Names and Pronouns dialog in PowerTeacher Pro. If one has not been entered, it translates to PSM_Student.FirstName.

• <last name> - translates to PSM_Student.LastName

Pronouns based on PSM_Student.Gender

• <he/she> - translates to he or she

• <his/her> - translates to his or her

• <him/her> - translates to him or her

• <He/She> - translates to He or She

• <His/Her> - translates to His or Her

• <Him/Her> - translates to Him or Her

Comment Length

In PowerTeacher Pro, teachers may enter final grade comments and standard final grade comments. Using the comment length setting, you can define the maximum number of characters that may not be exceeded when entering a comment in PowerTeacher Pro. If comment length is defined at the district level, the setting is applicable to all schools within the district. If the comment length is defined at the school level, it will override the district setting.

Comments from the comment bank will be truncated if smart text increases the comment length over the maximum length.

Define Final Grade Comment Length – District Level

1. Navigate to the Comment Length page at the District level.

2. Enter the number of characters (up to 2048) allowed in the Approximate maximum number of characters field.

3. Click Save. 

Define Standard Grade Comment Length – District Level

Standard grade comments are adjusted individually for each standard. 

Define Final Grade Comment Length – School Level

1. Navigate to the Comment Length page at the School level.

2. In the Final Grade Comments section select the School Level option and then enter the number of characters (up to 2048) allowed.

3. Click Submit. 

Define Standard Grade Comment Length – School Level

1. Navigate to the Comment Length page at the School level.

2. In the Standards Comments section select the School Level option and then enter the number of characters (up to 4000) allowed. To apply the maximum length defined by the district, select the Same as district standards setup option. 

3. Click Submit.