Genesis, familiar to some but not all, has recently been added to Bernards High School as a new form of tracking grades. Genesis is a software company out of Jamesburg, New Jersey, that provides school districts exclusively in New Jersey with educational operations. On their About Page, Genesis states their one goal is “[t]o provide a tightly integrated suite of management tools to streamline and simplify school and district operations.”
Genesis is not new to students from Bedminster Middle School, however, it is a major change for most students at Bernards High School who came from Bernardsville Middle School and have been using PowerSchool for the majority of their academic career.
PowerSchool, a national company owned by PowerSchool Holdings, Inc has been providing schools throughout the country with a grade book since 1997. Since PowerSchool is a national company for K-12 Gradebooks, getting help for issues and updates takes a while, whereas Genesis is a state-wide company and help is easily accessible.
Though many find this new change inconvenient and sometimes difficult to navigate at the moment, the benefits of using Genesis outweigh the benefits of PowerSchool.
The switch from PowerSchool to Genesis provides students, administrators, and parents with greater utilities, all while sticking to a more affordable cost for the school to fund these programs.
“So an example of that is back-to-school forms. In PowerSchool, we actually had to pay additional [fees] and it was labor intensive just to get forms that parents fill out to the school to be completed,” explains Dr. Neigel, principal of Bernards.
The deciding factor leading up to the program switch was the greater accessibility of certain applications within Genesis that were not available in PowerSchool unless an additional fee was charged.
Dr. Neigel explains, “There’s a lot of things that we were running into problems reporting data management in PowerSchool…that we found Genesis did better.”
As skeptical as much of the Student body may be about Genesis, the overall application has proven to be more efficient, effective, and reliable because it is a state-specific program. On the other hand, PowerSchool was nationally based, so updates and changes in the interface were not always communicated to the school.
With change, comes a mix of opinions along with criticism. Many administrators and students were accustomed to PowerSchool, so the switch to Genesis was an adjustment. “Genesis doesn’t show our grade as a letter, and it’s a big difference from PowerSchool,” says Brinley Cook ‘28.
While with PowerSchool, the program showed students the letter grade, students must now, with Genesis, calculate where their grades fall on a letter scale, which leaves some doubting their academic performance. The majority of students base their academic success on whether or not their grade falls into the A or A- range and seeing a letter grade provides more motivation for students since most do not know how percentage grades translate to letter grades. Students are disappointed that the letter grade feature is no longer an option with Genesis.
PowerSchool also allowed parents to be notified every time their child had a grade updated, which made it easier for parents to keep track of their child’s progress throughout the school year. This lack of notification also makes it more difficult for students to know when their grades have changed.
While there have been many concerns about the alteration, Dr. Neigel said, “I think we still need time to adjust to Genesis and get used to that. Once they do, I think they’ll certainly be content with it.”
It is important to remember that with any modification, it takes time to adjust to the change. Some students who have used both PowerSchool and Genesis found the benefits of Genesis to be greater.
“I find it easier to look at my daily schedule,” says Jack Dooley ‘28. Having used PowerSchool for the entirety of his middle school years, Dooley finds that Genesis is better than PowerSchool. Dooley says that the biggest advantage of Genesis is the layout. He continues by saying, “[Genesis] is easy to navigate and access whatever you need.”
Other students continued to express how they felt switching to Genesis was beneficial.
“I feel it was kind of needed; PowerSchool was not working for many people,” said Marvin Guardado ‘27.
Many feel that Genesis greatly helps them when it comes to finding their daily schedule. Anabella Derosa ‘25, a senior, explains, “If you don’t know what the schedule is for the day, you can just open it really quick and it’s immediately your schedule and you know where to go.”
Although there are many controversial feelings about this change in platforms, it is hoped that in time, students and administrators will find all of the great things Genesis has to offer.