ARHS uses multiple platforms to communicate with students and families. The following is a short description of the main tools you might use to learn about school events and information, as well as your student’s academic progress.

Powerschool is where student grades and attendance are recorded. Your student should have a login to Powerschool, and parents/guardians can either get a separate login or choose to log into Powerschool with their student. If you would like your own Powerschool login and don’t have one, you need to visit the ARHS front office in person (with ID) to get that. This is the most reliable way for your student and/or you to monitor their academic progress; teachers will enter all grades there, so you or your student can see if an assignment is missing. There is some variability in how frequently teachers update grades in Powerschool, so if your student has a question about an assignment, their best bet is to ask the teacher directly.

Google classroom (GC) is used by many teachers to post assignments and materials for their classes, and to collect student work electronically. The school recommends that, if parents/guardians want to see what is in GC, they log on with their student, because parents and others without an arps.org email address cannot get full access to GC. Some teachers may invite parents to their GC, but parents can only see limited reports in this format. Your student will get alerts from GC to their arps.org email account. Some teachers do return work and/or give feedback there, but grades are not stored in GC–the teacher has to enter those separately in Powerschool.

Parentsquare is new this year for ARPS and is the main platform the school and the district will use to communicate with families for general announcements. You should have received an email prompting you to make a Parentsquare account; if you missed this email and still need to sign up, be on the lookout for a reminder email; if you still have questions, you can contact Debbie Westmoreland in the district office. Emails you get from the school and district will be archived on Parentsquare as either “posts” or “alerts and messages.” 

Are there other topics you have questions about that might make a good “Do You Know. . ?” newsletter item? Send your ideas/requests to arhspgonews@gmail.com.