Three Easy Tulsa Public Schools Resources for Busy Parents

Keeping up with my kids’ school status while managing my jobs and household has always been a tremendous challenge for me. I honestly don’t know how people do it who don’t work from home — how do you put in a full day of work, come home, clean you house, wash laundry, prepare dinner, spend time with your family, and make sure your kids are caught up with their schoolwork?

I think all kids have unique academic challenges, which can make things even tougher when teachers and school admins are navigating some of the problems they’ve had to contend with in recent years. Like most folks with kids in public schools, my kids are in overcrowded classrooms. The schools face tremendous discipline and safety challenges while they’re struggling to even keep enough teachers on staff. 

Two of my kids have experienced long-term periods where there were no teachers to teach their classes. Rather than a teacher for some classes, they had a revolving door of substitute teachers or if they were really lucky, a long-term sub, and in all cases a “teacher of record” was assigned to oversee things like curriculum and grading. 

When we would check their grades, we found out pretty quickly that their grades for these classes don’t always line up with what my kids say they should be. And that’s not just my kids making excuses — I’ve had more than one teacher of record assure me that I shouldn’t worry about the grade because what’s posted doesn’t match the actual work. 

All that is to say that it’s both harder than ever and more important than ever to stay on top of your student’s academic progress if they’re in the public school system. As a Tulsa Public Schools parent, I’m often running into other TPS parents online who don’t realize how many tools and resources they have available, so I thought I would post and share a few of the essential resources that help me stay on top of my three students’ academics. 

Talking Points, Canvas and Power School logos

1. PowerSchool

Most TPS parents are probably aware that PowerSchool allows parents to log on and check out their student’s grades at any time — even if a student’s grades for that semester are not current, it can give you an overall sense of what’s going on and even take a look at their student’s attendance. 

What some parents might not realize is that Power School has an option to check in on a student’s graduation requirements and how close that student has come to meeting them, which is pretty important for high school upperclassmen. These days, the public school system requirements are a lot more complicated than they were back when I was in school. This includes filling out FAFSA documentation, completing CPR training, U.S. Civics knowledge assessment, and completing a financial literacy course. You don’t want to find out you’re missing something important late in the game during senior year. 

2. Talking Points

Talking Points is one of the most important things a TPS parent can download on their phone. If you’ve ever tried to call the school and contact a teacher or admin or even to email, you know it can be next to impossible to get in touch with someone you need to speak with in a timely manner with all the schoolside chaos that’s going on. 

Talking Points is an app you can download to your phone that all of your student’s teachers and admins are on. And in my experience, they tend to be pretty responsive through the app. In the rare case that I can’t get in touch with the teacher I’m trying to connect with, I can usually get in touch with someone else who can help me with the issue I’m having, whether that’s an administrator or an advisory teacher. And most teachers seem to appreciate the chance to be informed about an issue your student might be having or let parents know what their kid can do to catch up with something they missed in class. 

I’ve even messaged a gym teacher just to let them know my kid was having a rough morning and while they would be at school, they might need to take it easy today but didn’t want to approach the teacher in front of 30 other kids. The gym teacher in question was incredibly receptive and quietly pulled my kid over to tell them they could take things a little slower that day. 

We also frequently use the app to upload phone pics of homework my kids finished at home after missing a day or just forgetting to turn it in while they were still in school. 

Overall, this is just an all-around awesome app that makes it so much easier to connect with teachers and stay on top of missing assignments, missed work, or anything else you’ve got going on. 

3. Canvas

I’m sure you probably already know about Canvas since that’s how most schoolwork is done these days. But many parents don’t know that there’s an option for parents to log in and check in on their student’s work and assignments. 

This can be an incredible resource because remember how I said Power School doesn’t always line up with what the student’s grades really are? That’s where having access to Canvas can really come in handy. In Canvas, you can actually pop in and look at the teacher’s lessons and any notes related to an assignment. 

As the mom of three neurodivergent students, my kids will sometimes misunderstand the directions in Canvas or completely overlook assignments while thinking they’ve completed all of their work. One of my kids was speeding through their AP assignments thinking they were just killing it not realizing they were supposed to be writing an entire paragraph. When their grades were lower than they expected, we were able to pop in to Canvas and diagnose what’s been going on and then resubmit the problematic assignments. And don’t let a locked assignment seem like a dealbreaker — most teachers are pretty good about unlocking locked assignments when parents message to request a second attempt because they want your kids to get it right. 

Someone at the school will have to get you parental access, but don’t be afraid to ask. Worst case scenario, ask your kid for their login information and just use their account to check their progress on Canvas. 

Other Resources

Even if you’re like me and you’re spending most of your waking hours either at work or in some way connected to a household appliance, those three resources can help you stay on top of your kid’s schoolwork and anything else you might need if they’re enrolled at TPS. 

Tulsa Public Schools also has a ton of resources that most parents might not know about — things like free online tutoring kids can access from home — so don’t be afraid to take a deep dive into the parents’ resource page or ask your school’s parent facilitator. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a fantastic week in your little nebula!