Rancho Dominguez is moving to a new record keeping and grading system called Schoology.

“It’s a platform similar to school loop where students, parents, and teachers can access grades,” said assistant principal Brian Hannon.

Every student is being provided with an email from the district through their MyMail email service and passwords to access the program.

“We started using this program in the beginning of the school year. The reason it was implemented is because the district (LAUSD) needs to have all of its data in one area. We stopped using School Loop because it is a private company that is not tied with Schoology, therefore we had to stop using it,” said Hannon.

Over the first two weeks of school there has been a lot of negative opinions about this new program causing confusion and frustration around the school campus.

“The format of the program is complicated, you require of a lot of information just to sign up, but in my opinion I prefer using School Loop it was way easier to use,” said junior Czarina Go.

Teachers weren’t fully aware of the new system until a few weeks before the school year started. Since then teachers all over Rancho have been reporting issues with Schoology and it’s features.

“It seems to be a little difficult to use however I think once I practice how to use the program it’ll be useful. I need more training to get used to it, it is something new that I have to work at. However, I hope Schoology can do more than School Loop and better help students and parents in improving their grade,” said spanish teacher Maria Rodriguez.

Science teacher Ms.Tetreault concurred saying “ Schoology is a complicated program for teachers, but I think it has more potential than School Loop in the long run.”

“The more I familiarized myself with it, the less I dislike it… I think it’s because it’s a new change and nobody likes change. There was stuff that I was able to do with School Loop that I can not do with Schoology. For example, I cannot do student class reports or a seating chart on Schoology but I have learned to do some pretty neat things with Schoology,” says math teacher Luis Blazer.

Schoology also offers a very polished application which allows students to send in assignments, check grades, and establish mobile notifications for assignments.

Even though, Schoology was only implemented a couple weeks ago it’s going take some time before students, parents, and teachers can transition into using the program seamlessly and adopting it permanently into their classes.

If you need any help signing up for Schoology you can visit the school library during lunch(Tuesdays & Thursdays) for guidance on setting up your account and on how to use the program regularly.