Othello School District to retire Empower and move standards-based reporting into Skyward; late-work window shortened

The Othello School District announced a district-level decision to move standards-based reporting from the Empower platform into Skyward and to tighten the minimum late-work window from four weeks to two weeks.

Superintendent Pete Perez presented findings from focus groups and teacher trials at Othello High School and McFarland Middle School, saying the district ran a side-by-side comparison of Empower and Skyward and collected teacher and parent feedback. “We have decided that we're gonna switch to the use of Skyward. For SPG and traditional grading, we'd retire the use of Empower,” Perez said.

Perez said the change will create a single login for families, display a converted traditional grade alongside a standards-based grade, and simplify tracking of athletic eligibility. He said the district cloned classes so teachers could view courses in Skyward and compare workflow and communication.

Perez described teacher feedback collected in April and May: about 40% of surveyed teachers favored staying the course with Empower, roughly 15% wanted a pause focused on Empower, and just over 40% asked for options and flexibility — a combined majority the presentation characterized as leaning away from Empower. “When you combine those two at the end, it's just over 60% who say, maybe we should move away from Empower,” Perez said.

On late-work policy, Perez told the board the district will change the minimum allowable late-work window from four weeks to two weeks while preserving teacher discretion to accept work later for instructional reasons. “So we shrunk that down to four weeks, and now maybe this is gonna be the sweet spot where two weeks makes sense for teachers and for students,” Perez said, adding teachers will retain discretion to accept work beyond the minimum for learning reasons.

Perez outlined next steps: professional development for lead teachers, infrastructure work to migrate records and grading logic, and school-level decisions guided by a rubric to determine which courses are best suited for standards-based grading. At the high school, Perez said administrators and Dr. Meek developed a decision matrix to identify courses where SPG fits and those where traditional grading will remain.

The board did not take a formal vote on the platform migration during the meeting; Perez presented it as a staff decision and a planned administrative change. Board members asked clarifying questions about McFarland’s model, intervention supports and how the change would affect eligibility for athletics and college-credit courses. Perez said college-credit and some high-school courses will move to a traditional model where appropriate to avoid requiring teachers to maintain dual gradebooks.

Perez said the district will invest in paid professional development and technical support during the transition. He also described planned communication efforts for families, including information nights and materials intended to explain how standards-based scores convert to traditional letter grades.