Teachers and students alike struggle with StudentVue

By: Avery Hoisington

When it comes to turning in assignments or updating grades when remote learning, many teachers choose to use Synergy, or StudentVUE as recommended by the district. However, many students complain about teachers not updating grades, the website or app not working, issues with Zoom meeting links, trouble logging in, or the website being difficult in general.

“I personally dislike Student- Vue because it is so confusing. I have had problems turning in assignments in the past and am glad that all of my teachers who have regular homework decided to use alternatives. At this point, I don’t know if StudentVue is worth saving. I appreciated the district trying to create an easy to access platform where students can go to turn in all of their assignments, but that doesn’t help students if the website doesn’t work. At the end of the day, I believe that using better platforms to complete homework was a smart option and I’m glad that the district realized this and let teachers use other websites where students can complete assignments,” Videl Nelson said.

At the start of school in September, when all of the middle and high schools were remote learning, students needed to adjust to the new application in order to complete their assignments. Students had been using Google Classroom for years before the changes this fall.

“We were so used to using Google Classroom every day. When we started using Synergy, it was really confusing and I still don’t understand it,” Jenna Ginden said, (sophomore.)

In a recent poll, out of 25 students, 21 of them said that they preferred to use Google Classroom compared to StudentVUE, and only four said that they preferred StudentVUE.

“It is really easy to see my grades but is so confusing how to turn stuff in. Also, some teachers take forever to grade, Chloe Weber said, (sophomore).

This year, remote teachers throughout the district have had to switch to a different method of grading. Teachers have faced problems with posting grades and creating assignments for their students. One remote English teacher, Ms. Erin Foushee, has decided to use Google Classroom exclusively.

“As a remote teacher I have students from all five high schools. Each high school, each hour has its own gradebook. This means that in Synergy, I have 25 gradebooks. At the beginning of the year I was entering a 1 point assignment for all of my classes. To get through all 25 gradebooks, shifting through screens, schools, and hours, it took me 34 minutes to enter a 1 or a 0 for all of my students. That didn’t include grading time. This was an ineffective use of time so when the district allowed me to use Google Classroom, I was quite relieved,” Foushee said.

Google Classroom is a user friendly system as well.

“Its general format is already set so I didn’t have to set it up as much. I have also used it for years and many of my students have used it as well so there’s the familiarity benefit as well. All of my work is saved on my personal Google Drive so it is very easy for me to post materials and work from there on GC. Synergy struggled to connect with Google Drive,” Foushee said.