This lesson is a library of each available widget or tool for the Home Connection Portal.
Widgets are the features and tools which show information about students in the portal. Widgets are driven and built to support a specific product, such as Data and Assessment or Student Information. The following is a list of all available widgets and which product they are available for:
| Widget Name | Product |
|---|---|
| Assessments | DNA |
| Attendance | ISI |
| Classes/Grades | DNA, ISI |
| Forms | ISI |
| GPA | ISI |
| Gradebook |
DNA, ISI |
| Messaging | DNA, ISI |
| Photos | DNA, ISI |
| Pre-Registration | ISI |
| Report Cards | DNA, ISI |
| Schedule | DNA, ISI |
| State Test Results | DNA, ISI |
| Transcripts | ISI |
Portal Library
The following is a review of each available by widget on the portal for students and parents.
To manage widgets, visit Enabled Widgets.
When assessments are administered through Illuminate, the option to display the assessment, results, and answer key can be enabled. Parents/students can see how they performed overall, by standard/skill, or by question group.
There is the option for parents/students to see assessment results by Standard Scores or Score by Question.
Implementation Considerations: Decide if Common Assessments, Local Benchmarks, or other high stakes tests within your community are to be seen via the portal. Teacher graded items will negatively affect the score as a value of zero until a score is entered, but a message is alerted to parents/students that some scoring may need to be completed.
Attendance provides two options for parents and students: Year Summary or Attendance Marks. Parents have access to all academic years available for their child(ren).
Year Summary will show the current academic year's attendance marks for the child.
Attendance Marks provides filters to drill down by grading period, class, sorting options, and type of attendance. By default, it will be set to today, as of now, for unverified absent marks for all classes.
Parents and students are able to see their active classes with quick links to the gradebook for each course, when applicable. A way to filter or view various grading periods is available, but by default it is set to the current grading period.
Implementation Considerations include making sure teachers are trained and well-informed about how gradebooks communicate information in the portal, the options to hide or disable information when appropriate, student/parent rollout, and how gradebooks are tied to live schedules/rosters.
Until the first day of school or term, this widget will NOT show data and information.
Available only for parents and ISI clients, Custom Forms (primarily used for Online Registration) is a tool specifically for parents. Forms are sent to contacts to collect information about their child(ren). Primary or all contacts with portal access can be sent a form. The first person to start the form completes the form.
Implementation Considerations include current parent portal usage, review of forms and data collection needs, contacts refresher with merging and duplication, parent community support for portal, and more.
Tech Support: Email notifications within Custom Forms are sent from noreply@illuminateed.com.
Your Implementation Manager needs to be contacted to establish setup and support.
Gradebooks that are currently active will display for parents and students. Based on the type of gradebook assigned to the student (a Standards-Based or Points-Based Gradebook) this will display different pieces of information to communicate with parents. Most gradebook components display on portal unless disabled by the teacher.
Parents/students can select a gradebook to see assignments, scores, attachments, notes, and have the ability to filter by missing assignments quickly.
Depending on the grading practice, share a helpful guide with parents on how to understand Standards Based Grading.
Implementation Considerations include gradebook training for teachers on portal awareness, types of gradebook and portal navigation, and what a user will see in the parent portal after gradebooks have been successfully used for a few weeks or an entire grading period. It is highly recommended to expose the portal to parents during a school event, first progress reporting period, parent-teacher conference, or first grading period to encourage awareness.
The option for the ability for parents, students, and families to message a student's rostered teachers, is available. Teachers can manage, view, and compose messages through their own accounts.
A parent will receive an email notification that a message is available, being directed back to the portal to read/answer it.
Parents and students respond in the portal. Some messages are locked which means they are similar to announcements and can only be seen, not replied to.
Implementation Considerations include training for teachers, students, and parents on the messaging tools and availability. Messaging does show live schedules as soon as they are published. Users may consider disabling the tool during Summer.
Photos is a tool where teachers can connect parents and students with classroom and school community events by sharing, storing and tagging photos/videos to student(s), which are then available to download in the portal account.
Implementation Considerations include teacher training on District/LEA Photo policies and procedures, the Photos feature, and the Illuminate Mobile App.
Report Cards or Grades (at the end of a grading period), can be shown for view/download access to parents/students on the portal. Elementary Report Cards show instantly, even if there is no data entered. Once entered, data is available. There is no configuration for Elementary Report Cards. All historical report cards tied to the student are available.
Secondary Report Cards will not show unless there is a window setup. If you want report cards to be shown on the portal, you can select various options, including what grading periods are available to see on the template and start/end dates.
Elementary Report Cards are automatically on as soon as the grading periods start; Secondary Report Cards require setup or windows configured. This feature is a great way to engage parents during grading periods or conferences with their teachers or counselors.
The Schedule widget provides a view of the student's live schedule as soon as it is published. This is dynamic to how their schedule changes.
If the schedule widget is available prior to school starting, this widget will only display the future schedule when Show Future Terms is enabled.
Once schedules are published or imported, students will be able to see their schedules. Widgets can be disabled/enabled as needed via Enabled Widgets.
The State Test Results page will display results from a variety of state tests. The results display in chronological order by academic year. There are filters on the left to filter by Years or State Test. The results displayed on this screen focus on the overall Achievement/Performance Level obtained by the student for each test taken.
If additional details are available for the specific test, a link View Details will be available to get additional test data. The details page displays data by subject and displays the Overall Performance Level and Scale Score in parentheses at the top right, followed by each specific area tested and corresponding measure received.
Keep in mind when enabling the State Assessment widget in Illuminate, all State Assessments that display on the “State Assessment Overview” in the Student Profile will be displayed in the Home Connection Portal.
If the ETS CAASPP Integration has been configured, then Students and Parents will be able to retrieve CAASPP Student Score Reports through their portal account.
These are NOT depending on State Assessment Data imports, but rather on ETS and the integration. Up to three years of data is available and will include 18-19 once available by ETS.
Student GPA displays the student’s current GPA for their most recent final grades. GPA’s available are based on setup within the instance. Every type of GPA available to run is available for a parent to view.
Implementation Considerations should include using a district-preferred naming convention to the desired GPA calculation(s) you wish to make available in the portal since there could be a long list of GPA's available to them.
Transcripts display an unofficial view of transcript data, not an official configuration. This is a view only option for all historical final grading periods available. Printing can be done via browser, there is not a download or print button available.
Implementation Considerations: Transcript grades pull from final grading periods, if marked as appropriate. These are unofficial transcripts. Transcript configurations should be solid and complete prior to allowing visibility on the portal.
Next Steps
Ready for some more portal fun? Check out Parent Management vs. Contacts: What Is the Difference? to learn how to manage parents properly.