Stuyvesant Switches to PupilPath

For the upcoming school year, Stuyvesant switched its grading platform to PupilPath and Skedula, the student and teacher portal respectively under the school management system IO Classroom.

Traditionally, teachers had the option of using platforms of their choice, such as JupiterEd. However, as this required students to switch between multiple sites to access their grades, the administration decided to consolidate grades into one platform to centralize all class-related data. “We're a large school and the goal is to create some levels of consistency including with one gradebook,” Principal Seung Yu said in an e-mail interview. “We believe PupilPath will serve our needs to showcase learning and grade progress of students in their classes.”

IO Classroom also provides various applications that other grading sites do not. “Illuminate Education, maker of IO Classroom (aka Skedula) and PupilPath, was chosen due to its Integration with current DOE systems, attendance-taking capabilities, integration with Google Classroom, [and] reporting capabilities,” Dr. Haber said.

While Stuyvesant chose to use PupilPath for centralized grading, Stuyvesant had commonly used JupiterEd. “Many people were surprised by how sudden the switch was and which platform was chosen,” senior Nicole Itkin said in an e-mail interview. “Only one of my teachers, prior to this year, used PupilPath. Everyone else used Jupiter.”

Like JupiterEd, PupilPath lists the classes of each student, where each class details specific assignments. However, PupilPath also has additional visual components to display grading data. “I definitely prefer PupilPath more because of the layout, like the pie chart and bar graph,” junior Natalie Ma said. “Sometimes Jupiter doesn’t really show the weighted assignments, but PupilPath does that.”

Others are uncertain of the advantages that PupilPath has to offer compared to that of JupiterEd. “I know that Jupiter has a lot of functionality in addition to being a grade book, such as a place to submit homework and to hold tests,” senior Michelle Lo said in an e-mail interview. “As I'm mostly unfamiliar with what PupilPath has to offer beyond keeping a record of students' grades, I'm curious to see how teachers will use PupilPath for this year.”

PupilPath also lacks certain features that were offered on JupiterEd, such as the ability to message teachers directly. “I liked the messaging feature on Jupiter since [...] some teachers don’t use their Stuy email,” Ma said.

Using PupilPath is also a new adjustment, given its distinct layout and features. “Many of my teachers have said that it’s harder to check the averages of different assignments (particularly tests) on PupilPath and that it’s more difficult to assign seats and, in general, it’s simply more difficult to use,” Itkin said.

The gradebook also does not allow teachers to edit grades or resubmit them, creating an additional challenge. “Some of my teachers have complained about PupilPath because of something that locks their grade once they submit it (they can't edit the grade),” senior Edward Oo said.

As a result, some teachers have become stricter in submitting assignments. “You can't resubmit [grades] and one of my teachers has a strict policy against it saying that he’ll grade whatever you submit, so if you [make a mistake when submitting homework], you get a zero,” senior Vicky Liu said in an e-mail interview.

Even teachers who have used PupilPath in the past acknowledged the difficulties of using the platform. “It’s going to be painful in the short run, as many teachers adjust to learning the nuances behind the program,” math teacher David Peng, who has used PupilPath since 2018, said in an e-mail interview. “I went through them too and I did not enjoy putting in so much time in learning the platform, especially with no training available back then. Transition was tough for me then because nobody in the school used the platform, so I had to explore many of the features on my own.”

Despite the difficulties, moving to a centralized platform could be worthwhile in the long run. “Long-term, switching to a single grade book platform is worth the headache,” Peng said. “It never made sense for students and parents to have to log into multiple websites to figure out how they are doing in their classes.”

While Yu acknowledges that PupilPath is an unfamiliar platform for some, he instructs all teachers to use it. “Teachers are expected to input grades into PupilPath,” Yu said. “We recognize we're transitioning to one platform (PupilPath), so we know there will be a learning curve as we move to PupilPath. We’ll work with staff and students to use PupilPath this year.”