The 2021-2022 school year proved that no system is perfect. The New York City Department of Education has decided to cut their contract with Illuminate Education, the parent company behind PupilPath, following a massive data breach in early 2022. But the DOE’s decision to move away from PupilPath leaves students and teachers alike wondering, “Where do we go from here?”

In August, the DOE unveiled TeachHub, a new, centralized grading portal accessible from the front page of the DOE’s website, set to release to families in early October. In addition to the gradebook, the system hosts a multitude of applications and resources for students and teachers, including Microsoft Office, the Adobe Creative Cloud, Google Workspace, and Zoom.

In less than a week following its launch to the public, several problems arose. Students began complaining about the poor layout of the site, as well as their inability to track class averages. Museum School junior, Nicole Chan, stated “[TeachHub] formats horribly on mobile, which is mainly what I use to check my grades. It also doesn’t average any grades, so it isn’t really useful, as many classes place different categorical weights on assignments.” 

This critical stance is shared by many students, as senior Samuel Lee said,, “None of the grades were visible, the website was not working, and so you couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t transparent at all.”

Certain students experienced other issues with the platform that extended beyond web design. Chan said, “I think my biggest issue is that my TeachHub profile says I’m in 10th grade, which is odd and incorrect.”

Even teachers became  frustrated with the site’s poor operation. Ms. Rathgeb, a 10th and 11th grade Earth science and chemistry co-teacher said, “Whenever we log in, sometimes the site will just keep buffering over and over again. It’s incredibly frustrating and time-consuming because you’ll allot a certain amount of time to do some work, and you never get what you need.” Individually transferring every assignment from Google Classroom to TeachHub and re-assigning grades for all students all while on slow, outdated networks quickly became very tedious and frustrating for teachers. 

In light of the heavy criticism from students, teachers, and families, Principal Rodrigues announced to families in mid-October that the school had purchased a license for a grading system known as Jupiter Ed. This meant that all student grades would inevitably merge over to Jupiter, although details regarding when the shift will take place remain inconsistent between classes.

Many teachers have already started moving grades over in preparation for the end of Marking Period 1. Thankfully, Jupiter has the ability to automatically import both assignments and student scores directly from Google Classroom. However, many students feel displeased with the rate at which this transition is occurring. As Senior Jackson Niheu said, “I support it, but I think we need to expedite the process so we can actually see how we’re doing.”

A number of teachers feel they have no choice but to hold out on Jupiter until Marking Period 2. 10th grade English teacher Ms. Destefano said, “At this point, because we are already in November and have had no real place to put our grades, there is an incredible backlog of grades to be put in, so I have yet to begin putting grades in Jupiter, and I’ve continued to use Google Classroom to keep track of student progress. I will be finished making the switch by the beginning of Marking Period 2.” There is simply not enough time left in the marking period for every teacher to change platforms, and although not the fault of the teachers, this remains an inconvenience for Museum School families.

Ms. Ng, an 11th grade English and AP English Language teacher, said, “From September up until mid-October, it’s always been TeachHub. So let’s say I put 10 or 15 assignments already on TeachHub, so to move things from TeachHub to Jupiter–if we’ve already been putting in grades for a month and a half into TeachHub, this is going to be more time-consuming.”

Despite the rough introduction to the platform, the consensus amongst students is one of support for the administration’s decision. Jupiter is exponentially more convenient for students wanting to check their overall grade per class, and provides a breakdown of scores by category that factors into their class average. As Chan stated, “My experience with Jupiter has been good. It’s really easy to navigate and read, which is convenient,” something most students could not say about TeachHub.

Most teachers also seem equally content with uploading grades to Jupiter. Mr. Stein, a 9th and 10th grade geometry teacher, expressed support for the software, claiming, “It’s pretty easy to figure out how to use, and, like PupilPath, it has all the functions and all the features I would like in a grading program.” So far, Jupiter has been able to serve as a sufficient replacement for PupilPath, as the two systems have far more in common than with TeachHub. Ms. Rathgeb added, “I think it’s gonna help us as a community going forwards.”

As the first marking period draws to a close and many teachers adjust to a new grading standard, Museum School students and families settle in for what is hopefully the final step in this disjointed, schoolwide transition.