Students in different districts

[reisha]

All three of my children have been listed in PowerSchool under one district code, until this year. One of my children is now attending school under a different district code. How do I add her to my existing PowerSchool account so I can see everything for all three of my kids?

At the moment, it looks like I'm going to have to create a new email address just to be able to set up a separate PowerSchool account, just to be able to see one child's grades.

[DanM3]

Different districts have different PowerSchool servers and thus cannot talk to each other. However, you should be able to use the same email address in creating an account for your child in the new district. (In fact, you can can create the same user name, password and email address for both, though I would probably use different passwords as an additional layer of security.

[TomJ]

I have a parent with a similar issue. When he attempted to follow the set up process for a PS ID, it prevented him from doing so because it is an existing account. The existing account is for a child in a different district (we are a private school, thus our own district). He had to use a different email address to set up access for the student at our school.

It would be helpful to know what the work-around solution is other than establishing a new email account. It seems like there could be a prompt during the parent login (entering a District Code) to determine if the parent is requesting access for the correct school.

[ElstonS]

Hey @TomJ, 

Thank you for participating in our PowerSchool Community!

While adding the functionality of being able to access students that go to schools within different PowerSchool accounts would assist with the ease of use, the security of the student's information would be at great risk as the functionality you're describing would involve granting access into databases from different PowerSchool accounts.

And for this reason, we advise having two separate E-mail IDs as an additional layer of security to ensure the student's information is safe. 

Please let us know if you have any further queries. 

[asharrop]

A new email address is a ridiculous solution to security. We have moved a lot and all of the last several schools have used Powerschool. We're out of email addresses and cannot create a new Powerschool account for our newest school district. I will not create more email addresses for this, nor should anybody have to.

If there is any way around this I would love to know what it is. As it stands now we're just emailing all the teachers constantly to get updates on our kid's grades. Bet they love that...

[jamiem7]

Thank you for sharing your experience in the PowerSchool Community!

There is another thread that addresses the same concern with a parent that has an email associated with different districts and would like to reuse the email.  The explanation of the security required to separate school districts as well as a resolution to have previous school districts remove your parent account allowing you to reuse your email address in a new school district can be found in the thread. I have linked the similar thread below.

https://help.powerschool.com/t5/Enrollment-Registration-Family/To-many-accounts-None-are-working/m-p...

[gbates]

If the databases are separate, how does one district's PowerSchool install know about my email address used in another district when I try and sign up? To me, that says that the email address is used as a key for a centralized PowerSchool authentication and *not* as an individual account with the district.

Plus, what do you do when you're moving kids between districts or when you have kids at different districts (not everyone lives in a unified school district) and both districts use PowerSchool? Enrollment where I'm at takes place in December/January, so the current account needs to remain active through the end of the school year but I need to provide information to the district my child will be moving to in the fall by setting up a new account with the second district now.

I don't get separate phone numbers or mailing addresses when signing up with different school districts, why should my email address be treated any differently? And why is email address (without a combined district code) being used as a key?

[BishalG]

Hi @gbates,

Would you please confirm whether your question is related to PowerSchool SIS or PowerSchool Enrollment?

PowerSchool SIS and PowerSchool Enrollment work very differently. PowerSchool Enrollment supports using a single PowerSchool Enrollment account to enroll in multiple PowerSchool Enrollment schools or districts.

PowerSchool SIS has separate instances for each district and does not allow the usage of a single Parent Portal account across districts.  However, you can use the same Parent Portal account to access your student's information across multiple schools in the same district.

[gbates]

Thanks for getting back. I am posting in the Enrollment forums so the issue is primarily with PowerSchool Enrollment, but in the current district my children attend, we are directed to log into PS SIS to click on a link to access the PS Enrollment interface for confirming attendance each year.

If I can use one email for several districts using PS Enrollment, that's great, but there doesn't seem to be an interface for changing my email or resetting my password with PS Enrollment. My last login directly to PS Enrollment was when my children were originally enrolled years ago, and we're frequently accessing the PS SIS system (including attached PS Enrollment) through my apparently separate PS SIS account (user generated, email address is only associated to it), it's not likely that I'm going to have that dusty old PS Enrollment password handy. If there are instructions for resetting the PS email-based id's password, I welcome the instructions.

[gbates]

Considering there's one PS Enrollment account for all, I just went through the "forgot password" process which went smoothly.

It would still be nice if the two systems were integrated more and the email address wasn't used as a key in the one. Enrollment is an important tool, but so infrequently used by parents compared to SIS.

Thanks

[BishalG]

Hi @gbates,

I have provided a response to your question about PowerSchool SIS and PowerSchool Enrollment integration here.

[808in402]

It's 2024 and I don't see any recent responses. Has PS figured out a way to allow one parent account for kids in multiple school districts?

[DanM3]

@808in402 No and I wouldn't expect them to do anything. Given the millions of users, those who have kids in different districts is such a small amount (a fraction of one percent) the issue probably wouldn't even appear on their radar.

[Melbwilde]

I'm trying to add my son - who is now in another district - to my mobile Powerschool account. From this forum it sounds like I need a separate account for a student in a different district. How can I access that account via mobile app, if I can only have one version of the Powerschool app on my phone at one time? 

[DanM3]

You can't have two versions of the app on the same device. What I would recommend is to use the app for the child you most constantly check on or the one you are most concerned and then use the browser to access the other one. Otherwise you will have to constantly not only sign in and sign out, but have to change District Codes each time as well.

[Davesdewas]

I am posting in the Enrollment forums so the issue is primarily with PowerSchool Enrollment, but in the current district my children attend, we are directed to log into PS SIS to click on a link to access the PS Enrollment interface for confirming attendance each year.