Westerville City School District officials today announced that access to the Emergency Contact Information Update Form on PowerSchool’s Parent Portal will be temporarily restricted beginning November 30, 2019, in order to process a backlog of pending requests. The backlog was caused by significant behind-the-scenes changes PowerSchool made to student contacts that, among other things, support a variety of possible family structures and the ability to grant different levels of student access. Additionally, parents and guardians may now associate several other contacts to student records, such as emergency contacts, daycare providers, or additional family members. These changes also allow for multiple emails and phone numbers.
Parents and guardians frequently use this electronic form to submit updates to phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and names of emergency contacts associated with their students’ school records. However, for data verification purposes, changes submitted through this portal are not made automatically to student records. Instead, each requested update is reviewed and approved by a district employee before being manually added to the records in question.
While the restriction is in place, parents and guardians should call or visit their child’s school and work with office staff to update their emergency contact information. Anyone attempting to update emergency contact information through the Parent Portal will receive a “view only” message. All other sections of the portal will remain open and accessible for changes. District officials also plan to use this as an opportunity to identify potential improvements to current emergency contact update procedures.