IO Classroom and PupilPath Gone and Back

Illuminate Education’s two major grading platforms, IO Classroom and PupilPath, were fully restored on January 18, allowing both teachers and students to regain access to the online gradebooks before the end of the semester.

The previous week, Illuminate Education notified Stuyvesant of a service interruption proceeding its prolonged shutdown. The temporary unavailability of the platform caused the school to shift to recording class attendance through hard copy, while also restoring the attendance module in Talos, which was used during remote learning. “The IO Classroom and PupilPath outage caused considerable angst and hand-wringing for the Stuyvesant High School community,” Assistant Principal of Organization Gary Haber said in an e-mail interview.

With attendance being a major concern, many teachers found the outage to be inconvenient. “The outage has not only affected our attendance record-keeping but our daily class participation grade as well,” Physical Education teacher Rebeca Morel said in an e-mail interview. “Since Physical Education is a participation-based class, it's important for students to be able to see how they're doing every day.”

As for grade-keeping, the temporary service delay did not require major adjustments to be made by all teachers, as some already noted scores on different physical or online services for backup. “[Usually] I keep a separate excel file [with] grades as well as a Delaney book with [homeworks] and tests marked,” math teacher Stan Kats said in an e-mail interview.

In addition, teachers who often use PupilPath for assignment submissions transitioned to accessible alternatives. “My chemistry teacher posted our test grades on Google Classroom, and some teachers have also switched to collecting homework [there], whereas before they would collect it either in-person or on PupilPath,” sophomore Sonia Atlas said.

However, with the end of the semester approaching, students expressed concerns over losing their ability to know how recent exams impact their course average. “I want my [geometry] grades to come out, and [because] we just had a test, [...] it could bring my grade up or down. [...] It makes me feel relieved to know if my grades aren’t that bad,” freshman Joy Herman said.

Other students find that having PupilPath available gives them a grasp on what they need to do to prepare for upcoming exams. “Personally, I'm slightly concerned because keeping track of my grades is the way I'm able to see how I'm doing in class and in which ways I need to work harder,” Atlas said. “Since right now we’re before finals, it'd be easier to know how I [previously] did so I’ll know what I need to study.”

With IO Classroom and PupilPath fully functioning as of January 20, teachers and students can return to their daily visit to the gradebook. However, despite the platforms’ restorations before the end of the marking period on January 24, the week that was lost has increased the workload for teachers. “Teachers are particularly affected as they now have a backlog of period attendance, assignments, and grades to input into IO Classroom,” Haber said. “Insofar as the fall term [...] ends on Monday, January 24, 2022, teachers have a great deal of work on their plate.”