Cloud Based School Management Software with Teacher Gradebooks
School Management System with Integrated Teacher Gradebooks and Free Gradebook
Getting Your SchoolOnline Couldn’t be Easier
Start Free
First start a free trial account. Add students, teachers and classes. Setup enrollment, attendance, schedules, custom grades and custom fields. Invite teachers, students and parents to access their online accounts.
Customize
When you have started, call (866) 339 9283 or email sales@thinkwave.com and tell us exactly what want for your customized report card. We’ll help fine tune your setup to make your school management software work exactly right.
Subscribe
When everything is to your satisfaction, purchase a monthly or annual subscription. The work you’ve done during the free trial remains in your account.
Why Choose ThinkWave Student Management System
Instantly Enable Distance Learning
ThinkWave helps schools enable distance learning by making it easy to electronically deliver assignments and announcements. Students can upload work with an easy-to-use upload function. Files are immediately available to the teacher in the gradebook. Messages are posted and sent by email to all students and parents, specific groups, or classes.
Handouts, messages and assignments are organized in one place - everything is securely available from any computer.
Save hours compiling report cards and transcripts.
Administrators manage students, classes, schedules, attendance, and custom data. Teachers use a prepopulated gradebook to plan curriculum, record grades, and submit attendance. Students and parents login to track progress, download materials and submit assignments.
Time savings add up when double entry is eliminated and data flows smoothly. Everyone has access to all the data they need in the school management software. Best of all, generating reports becomes an enjoyable, one-click task.
Cloud-based solution provides security and reliability.
ThinkWave is available 24/7/365 from any location with an internet connection using personal computers, tablets or smartphones. It’s hosted on Google App Engine, together with education innovators such as Udemy and Khan Academy. Data is securely stored in encrypted form in multiple, geographically-distributed data centers.
The cost of subscribing to ThinkWave is much less than maintaining a high-availability system in-house.
All-inclusive license with support and upgrades.
Subscription includes school administration system, teacher gradebooks, online access for students and parents, technical support, and upgrades. Pay monthly or save up to 16.4% by choosing an annual plan.
Simple, understandable and predictable pricing eliminates headaches and lets you focus your energies on what’s most important: educating your students.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the school management software gather data from multiple teachers to create a consolidated report card?
Yes. A key function of the school software is to streamline the flow of information and eliminate double entry of data. Teachers keep assignments and grades in their gradebook, grades are automatically calculated, and results are instantly available for report cards and student transcripts, improving overall student outcomes.
Do all teachers have their own accounts in the school management software?
Yes. Each teacher has a secure personal account with a pre-populated gradebook, an interface for taking attendance, printed and email reports, and powerful tools for messaging students and parents. Grade and attendance information instantly flows to the administrator views. Teachers can have private or group-wide discussions with students regarding assignments, messages, or individual student work, addressing unique challenges they face.
Can administrators and teachers send email messages to everyone in the school?
Yes. The school management system provides powerful messaging and emailing functionality. Administrators can post messages to students, groups of students, teachers, or parents and automatically send them by email. Teachers can send messages to students in their classes. Recipients can comment and reply to the messages.
The management system automatically sends summary emails to students and parents. These reports include the latest messages, recently graded assignments, upcoming assignments, and recent attendance. By default, summary emails are sent weekly. However, those emails are only sent when there are new messages, new assignments, new grades, or new attendance, offering solutions that enhance communication and student outcomes.
Can the school management system calculate GPA?
Yes. ThinkWave student management system provides powerful tools for calculating GPA, including weighting by units, adjusted GPA for honors classes, and the ability to include or eliminate classes, terms, or years from the final calculation. The GPA is available for report cards, transcript reports, GPA reports, and custom reports, providing a clear view of student outcomes.
Can your school management software system be used on mobile phones?
Yes, our school management software system comes with a responsive layout that makes it easy for parents, students, teachers, and school administrative staff to use the program on their mobile phones.
Can we upload our school logo?
Yes. Your school’s logo can be uploaded and will be included in report cards, transcripts, and custom reports, helping to maintain your school's branding while managing tuition and other student information efficiently.
Where is student management software data hosted?
Data is hosted on Google App Engine. Google App Engine is a cloud-computing platform mirrored on redundant servers. The servers are backed up constantly on multiple mirrored locations in various data centers around the US. The data centers contain some of the highest physical security access requirements found anywhere in the world. For additional security, we recommend schools perform a local backup at least once a term. The Setup tab provides the ability to export all grades, attendance, and custom field data in .csv format. The exported file will have a .txt extension. Renaming the file from .txt to .csv will allow the file to be imported into Excel. Also, we recommend schools generate the report card, transcript, student summary, and gradebook reports once a term in .pdf. ThinkWave school management systems software has incorporated and abides by Google's privacy policy by reference within our privacy policy. We use SSL to transmit data, as can be noted on the top left of the browser window. This ensures the security of your school's data, including student outcomes and other student information system functions.
Can I download my school’s data from the school management software?
ThinkWave school management system software provides tools to export attendance, grades, and custom field data in a widely-compatible .csv format. This allows schools to easily manage student information and track outcomes.
How many administrator accounts does the school management software support?
Each administrator should have an individual login. An additional administrators screen in the setup view provides tools to create an access code for all the administrators in your school. There is no limit to the number of administrator users.
Can more than one teacher access the same gradebook?
Yes, there is an option for multiple teachers to access a course in the student management system. First, add the teacher aide as a teacher in the Teachers tab in the education management software. Then, in the Teachers menu, click the Assisting item - and enroll the teacher as an assistant to the proper classes. Finally, send an invite letter by email to the assistant teacher to access their online account.
Can parents see all their students in one login or do they need separate accounts?
The system makes it easy to associate multiple parents and guardians to any student, as well as group all students for each parent.
Can the school management software be used for Adult Training?
Yes. ThinkWave school management software is used in a wide variety of educational institutions, including colleges, vocational schools, training programs, and more. If parent access is not needed because the institution is geared toward adults, it is easy to disable Parent online access and just use online access for students.
How many years does the school management software maintain in the database?
The annual license for ThinkWave includes storage for previous years’ data. So there is no difference if your school maintains 1 or 10 years of historical data. It is possible to use the “Rollback” function to create previous years, and enter historical data to enable comprehensive transcripts for students.
Does the management system support taking attendance?
Yes. There are multiple ways to use the school management system to manage your school’s attendance. Attendance can be recorded on a per-class, per-day, per half-day or custom basis. Marks can be entered directly by administrators or by teachers. Custom rules can be used to calculate attendance results. (example: student earns a second-half-day absence if she misses over 50% of minutes during 4th, 5th and 6th periods).
Does the gradebook allow weighting of assignments types (e.g. Homework 40%, Quizzes 20%, Tests 40%) and drop lowest grades?
Yes. Each teacher can establish custom grading options in their gradebook interface. Grade calculations can be pure points or flexible grading options. Flexible options let teachers combine points, percentage, letter, pass/fail, complete/incomplete or custom grades into one final grade. Teachers can throw-out lowest grades, use assignment-type weighting, combine subterms, and more.
Can teachers have different grading options for different classes?
Yes. Teachers can establish default grading options for the entire gradebook, or set up custom grading options for each class, or even customize grading options on a per-term basis.
Can teachers copy their assignments from previous years?
Yes. Teachers can copy assignments, including descriptions and attachments from previous terms, or even from other instructors. ThinkWave student management software automatically distributes the assignments into the current term with the same spacing as the previous term. All descriptions and attachments are also copied.
Can students turn in homework using the school management software?
Yes. Students have multiple options for submitting work online. Students can directly submit work using a text editor, and teachers can make revisions or corrections to the work. Students can also upload files, or submit links to online resources, such as Google Docs. Teachers and students can have a private discussion regarding each individual submission.
Which product is appropriate for my school, the solo gradebook or the student management system?
As a rule, schools use the student management system while solo teachers use the free online gradebook. Some advantages of using the ThinkWave schoolwide system include: All teachers get their own gradebooks and individual logins. Multiple administrators can access all school records and gradebooks with their own logins. Combined data from multiple teachers integrates to create unified report cards and transcripts. Your school can track day attendance instead of just section attendance. Students see all their teachers automatically upon login.
Can you print a standards based gradebook report card with ThinkWave?
Yes, ThinkWave can print a standards based report card. The report card can be customized in a variety of formats to properly display standards assessments. Many of our schools use ThinkWave to automatically generate Pre-K, Kindergarten, and other standards based reports.
Admins begin by setting up standards and attaching standards to courses. Then the teachers get those standards in their gradebook automatically. Standards can be created in Setup | Standards & Skills (this is where you would go to add "Letter Recognition", etc.). Then, select a course in the Classes tab, and attach the standards and skills to the class. To attach a standard to a course, go to the Classes tab and click the edit icon next to "Standards & Skills". Teachers can then assess standards separately (in their Final Grades by Class subtab). Standard assessments will then automatically show on the report card.
Can you print behavior and conduct on the report card?
Yes, ThinkWave can print behavior and conduct on the report card. To create behavior marks, create a Graded Skill called "Behavior" [and all your other character marks like “Pays Attention”] in Setup | Grading | Graded Skills. Then, go to the Classes tab and on the bottom there, check the edit icon next to "Standards & Skills". Behavior can be added to only one course or multiple courses. A grade can be entered by teachers / admins for Behavior and a comment up to 5,000 characters can be entered. The behavior skill can be included on report cards and transcripts. The grade would be entered by teachers in their "Final Grades by Class" subtab, or by admins in the Final Grades tab. The behavior mark can be displayed either next to the overall class grade or in a separate section on the report card.
Does the school management software support report card comments?
Yes. Teachers can add comments up to 5000 characters per course using the Final Grades by Class view in the gradebook screen. Alternately, comments can be added (or overridden) by administrators in the Final Grades tab.
Does the school management software support A/B scheduling?
Yes, we have the option to set up A/B Schedules. To set up this schedule, school administrators should:
- Go to Setup | Schedule | Day Schedules.
- Rename the Default schedule to “A”.
- Click “Add Schedule” and create a B Schedule.
- Click on schedule A, and edit the periods as necessary. If you need to create more periods, like “1st Period B”, do so here: Setup | Schedule | Periods.
- Then, and this is important, mark every other day in the Monthly Calendars (found on the bottom right of Setup | Schedule | Monthly Calendar & Schedules as “B”. You will need to click on every other day in the calendar and change the schedule in the pulldown to B day (the A days will already be set).
Note: you can also create more detailed Day Schedules. If you like, email us details and we can set this up for you.
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