Recently, Prince George’s County Public Schools made the decision to switch from SchoolMAX to Synergy, a website made to track attendance, assignments, and communication with teachers. But how has the switch affected students and staff at Eleanor Roosevelt? On Monday, July 22nd at 4:10PM, Synergy was launched in PGCPS, marking the start of a new transition for students, teachers and staff at the beginning of the year. They hoped are for a better and more simple system than SchoolMAX.

English teacher at ERHS Ms. Allison Beers shared her opinion on Synergy as well, stating that she hasn’t decided if the use of Synergy made her job easier or not. She states that she knows the basics, but not when it comes to report cards. “I have not learned how to use the feature where we can check if parents are checking Synergy,” she said, “I don’t think we had enough training with Synergy before we went live.” Ms. Beers has also stated that there are minor glitches within the system regarding grading from Canvas, such as the wrong grades being uploaded. “It’s the exact same as it was with Schoolmax, only we don’t know how to use it,” stated Mrs. Beers, “I’m way less happy than I was with Canvas, I would rather be using Google Classroom… I would rather be using something I already know how to use.”

10th grader at ERHS Damarco White was asked how he felt about Synergy and he said “I feel frustrated because Synergy is so dumb, SchoolMAX is better.” He was asked if he thinks it’s an improvement on SchoolMAX and he responded with “Nope.” Last question he was asked was if he has had any trouble navigating through it or had it been smooth sailing and to that he said “Fifty fifty but mostly smooth.”

Overall, currently the switch to Synergy has a mixed bag of feedback, mostly being negative. Hopefully, as the year progresses, the usage and opinions on Synergy will grow to be more easy to use and positive.