One of my favorite t-sirts exclaims "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script". This is how I feel about the family_rep field in PowerSchool. Does anyone really keep it up to date properly? And if you don't, aren't families at risk of missing that important mailing?
This plugin eliminates the need to manually maintain family reps.
How Does it work?
When in the DISTRICT OFFICE a link "Select District Family Reps" appears under the search box on the admin homepage. This links to a familyreps.html page that picks the youngest student at each household for the entire district BASED ON HOME PHONE NUMBER. The family reps become the current selection and you are redirected back to the start page.
When you're in a SCHOOL the link changes to "Select [school abbreviation] Family Reps" and finds the family reps at each household just within the school.
There is also an added option to select family reps from within your current selection of students in the group functions popup.
The SQL query does take into account students who are checkmarked as a family_rep on the Modify Info screen. Those checked always get included in the student selection. This is to account for those rare instances where two or more students have the same home phone but still need individual copies of all school mailings.
Twins and triplets are taken into account when selecting family reps. Students with blank home phone numbers are also included automatically.
THIS PLUGIN IS NOT FOR EVERYONE. BEFORE DEPLOYING PLEASE NOTE:
- Your school may have different way of determining student family representatives. This will only be a replacement for schools that group households by home phone.
- If you plan on using this customization in production you should clear the family_rep field for every student EXCEPT for students who are not the youngest of the household but still need a copy of mailers (as noted earlier).
Now includes an optional "siblings alert" for the admin portal!
Enable the sibling alert at District Management > District Setup > Additional System Preferences.
This will display in the student header on the admin portal when a student is found to have one or more sibling based on home_phone:
Clicking the icon brings up a list of siblings who are either active or pre-registered in the district.
Sibling names can be clicked to open in a new tab if you are in the District Office.
Attachment | Size |
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instant_family_reps_6_2_1.zip | 11.51 KB |