Clara Science Academy · Greensboro, NC
A modern K–8 learning community with a secure student portal for families, teachers, and school leadership—built for clarity, care, and academic momentum.
Families & staff — sign in to your personalized portal
Our school
Excellence in education with a personal touch—STEM-forward thinking in a nurturing K–8 environment.
Clara Science Academy fosters academic excellence, critical thinking, and scientific inquiry. Our curriculum and teaching methods prepare students for an evolving world while keeping class sizes and relationships human-scale.
We believe every student can achieve greatness with the right tools, guidance, and environment.
Students enrolled
Expert teachers
Student portal
The same platform families see on the home page powers day-to-day teaching, grading, and reporting inside the academy.
Enrollment, records, and academic progress in one intuitive hub for administrators and teachers.
Assignments, grading, attendance, and engagement—including interactive quizzes with Google Forms integration.
Multiple question types, auto-grading, time limits, and streamlined quiz management for educators.
Report cards, attendance summaries, and performance trends with real-time insights for leadership.
Integrated messaging and notifications keep students, teachers, and families aligned.
Encryption and role-based access protect student data across every device.
Curriculum
A balanced K–8 course of study—core subjects, enrichment, and room to grow.
Physics pathways, labs, and hands-on inquiry.
From foundations through middle-school readiness.
Reading, writing, and communication skills.
Civics, geography, and cultural awareness.
Computational thinking and digital literacy.
Visual arts, music, and creative expression.
Platform
Real-time attendance, digital grade books, automated report cards, interactive quizzes, and mobile-friendly access—so educators spend less time on paperwork and more time with students.
Leadership
Voices from the team shaping Clara Science Academy—governance, instruction, and the platform families rely on.
Leading Clara Science Academy with a vision for educational excellence and innovation—committed to the best learning environment for every student.
As Director, I ensure every student receives the highest quality education. Our management system helps us stay personal at scale.
Technology is the backbone of modern education. Our platform keeps operations seamless for the whole CSA community.
Join Clara Science Academy and experience thoughtful school management—from the classroom to the report card.
Latest improvements and enhancements · Last updated June 12, 2026
June 12 (v 2.504.0) polishes the Family Portal and sidebar for all themes, fixes staff roster access for administrators with multiple roles, tightens Google Workspace staff provisioning, and ships a round of security hardening behind the scenes.
Impact: Families and staff get a more polished portal experience. Google Directory stays aligned with who should actually have accounts. Leadership tools work reliably for merged admin logins.
/parent/dashboard. Parents see a child picker (all linked students), insight tiles (GPA, classes, attendance), and quick links for Grades, Attendance, Classes, Report Cards, and Settings.
/Parents organizational unit in Google Admin for future parent account sync. Student and staff OU lifecycle rules (Alumni, Transferred & Removed, Terminated & Removed) were also refined in this release.
Impact: Families can follow school progress in one place without seeing draft report cards. Directors keep final say on what goes home. Staff provision logins from existing parent contact fields and hand off credentials securely (automatic parent welcome email is planned for a follow-up).
Impact: Faster assignment setup, clearer grading context by quarter, trustworthy report card PDFs, and bulk void that works through closure without empty student lists.
Impact: After closing a year, staff see an honest empty/read-only experience instead of last year’s numbers pretending to be current. Browsing classes and assignments by year is deliberate, and scheduling year-end closure lives next to the calendar tools you already use.
is_auto_generated and the actor that fired the run, so admins can tell at a glance which records came from the auto-finalize step vs. a manual run.
Impact: The end of the school year is no longer a single risky button — it's a four-week, fully-audited workflow that handles the predictable cases automatically and gives Directors precise tools to handle the human ones.
/management/school-years): New hub-aesthetic page with an active-year spotlight, insight tiles (total years, periods configured, year length), live-filter table of every year past and present, side-by-side Quarter/Semester cards with per-period editing, and themed modals for adding, editing, and viewing each year.
ValueError: month must be in 1..12 bug is gone.
Impact: Starting the new school year is now a one-form flow with smart defaults, and the School Years management page is finally a first-class workspace instead of a buried settings screen.
Impact: The report-card workflow now matches the rest of the management hub aesthetic, and the 3rd-grade workflow finally has a system of record for standards instead of relying on grades alone.
Impact: Academic-risk alerts are accurate to each user's scope, appear consistently across every page, and can be dismissed (and reliably re-appear) without fighting the UI.
Impact: Leadership has a clearer home base and smoother enrollment workflows; attendance reporting is faster to scan and filter; analytics highlights students who may need follow-up; and everyday UI bugs (modals, class cards) are resolved.
Impact: Rosters and voiding are faster and calmer to use, class pages read more cleanly, staff can keep directory-style photos current, and report cards respect real enrollment history—including students who have left mid-year when policy allows.
Impact: Quizzes are more reliable for students, teachers can build large quizzes faster with less scrolling, and grade/overview statistics are more accurate when voiding is used.
view=grades.
student_q=…; switching views keeps that query; Clear removes it from the address bar. The matrix card uses sticky name and average columns, improved spacing, and a teal-themed header consistent with the rest of the tool.
group_id on group membership and group grades (fixing errors when updating rosters or voiding group assignment grades).
Impact: Teachers and admins reach grading-oriented views faster, can scan large classes in table view, manage redo and reopening in one place, and see academic-risk alerts reliably no matter how staff roles are split between primary and secondary fields.
Class of YYYY@); use school-level lists, studentassembly@, or per-class groups for mail.
elementary@, middle_school@, or highschool@) plus studentassembly@. Grade K–2 records follow the existing policy (no Workspace email until third grade).
class-12-2526@clarascienceacademy.org (internal class id plus a four-digit school-year key from the active year) and a human-readable group name matching the class title. Membership includes enrolled students (with school email) plus primary, additional, and substitute teachers. The current primary teacher is the group owner; when the primary changes, sync promotes the new primary before demoting the former one so someone always has owner rights.
teachers@: Staff accounts are placed under /Staff (including paths for inactive or removed staff where policy applies). While a staff member is in an active OU, sync keeps them in teachers@ so faculty-wide email lists stay accurate.
MAIL_PASSWORD and public site URL) are configured if you rely on welcome messages. A one-time backfill script can create missing class groups where needed.
Impact: Google accounts, OUs, and group membership stay consistent with the website; teachers get reliable class mailing lists with correct ownership; staff understand portal vs Google sign-in; and cohort organization stays clear (OU-based, not duplicate cohort Groups).
Impact: Dashboards stay usable on scaled displays and zoomed browsers; quiz grading and student-facing quiz data are clearer and more trustworthy; school administrators get cleaner student and staff lists that are easier to read at a glance.
Impact: Grading is safer and harder to do “by accident,” students get clearer quiz status, and leadership/tech teams have stronger visibility into actions and staff activity without widening access.
Impact: Admins can quickly find both active and historical employee records without switching pages. Quiz creation is faster and less error-prone when building multi-section quizzes.
Impact: Staff see assignment and alert language that fits their role, and teachers and administrators can reach every sidebar destination on compact or scaled screens without hunting for icons or sideways scrolling.
Impact: Grading and report cards are now aligned under one policy, generation is more auditable, and school leadership gets immediate visibility when report cards are created or need review.
Impact: Assignment workflows are cleaner and faster to use, document handling is more reliable, and group-assignment management is clearer across creation, viewing, and grading.
Impact: Assistant capabilities are broader, attendance actions are easier to use, and students get more accurate status visibility across assignments.
/teacher/grades link now redirects there automatically.
Impact: Teachers see a simpler home screen; families understand when official period GPA is still being finalized; and the whole school gets a timely nudge before grading periods close.
Impact: Assistants can propose work safely; teachers stay in control of what the class sees; pending work is visible from the places staff already use; and the approval experience looks intentional.
/assistant/, a refreshed dashboard promo with per-class shortcuts, and an in-page class switcher on the workspace, attendance, and grading screens so moving between classes is one click.
Impact: Fewer mixed signals between grades and “submitted” in alerts; reopen and quiz retakes stay honest when work is voided; staff see void status on submissions; assistants save time when they support more than one class.
CSA-Laptop-# or CSA-Tablet-#), device name, cord number (often the same as the device number), operating system, and one assigned student per device.
student_db_id) or school student ID. Existing asset_name values are updated; new rows create assignments. Imports run per row so one bad line does not discard the rest.
Impact: IT can maintain a clear inventory of who has which laptop or tablet and load or refresh data from a spreadsheet.
Impact: Assistants can be chosen flexibly from the right grades (or from the roster) while keeping workloads fair and capped.
Impact: Teachers and admins have fine-grained control over group assignment voiding. Grading is more accurate with blank scores handled correctly. Submission counts reflect real work turned in. Submission notes are faster to enter with consistent options.
Impact: Teachers and administrators can quickly see which at-risk students have turned in their work versus those who haven't, making follow-up and interventions more targeted.
docs/RENDER_UPLOAD_404_FIX.md) explaining the cause, how to configure a Persistent Disk and mount /static/uploads, and optional cloud storage (S3) alternatives. render.yaml comments were updated with disk config examples.
Impact: Teachers and administrators stay aware of academic concerns no matter which tab they're on, with search and filters to quickly find specific students. Academic alerts are accurate for all grading scales. Students can see who assigned each piece of work. Admins deploying to Render have clear guidance on avoiding assignment document 404s.
Impact: Assignment documents load reliably for students and teachers. Teachers and administrators can quickly see how many redo requests are waiting for review without opening the Redo Dashboard first.
Impact: Clearer assignment categorization for grading, reliable reopen and extension behavior for PDF/Paper, accurate void/unvoid/extension flows, and a cleaner assignment view with no duplicate Edit button.
Impact: 20 total themes now available—personalize your dashboard with a look that works for you.
Impact: Students can share diagrams, screenshots, and supporting documents directly in discussion posts—no need to host files elsewhere.
Impact: Assignments are easier to scan and prioritize by due date across both teacher and student views.
UPLOAD_FOLDER to a persistent disk path for stable uploads.
Impact: Teachers and administrators can easily print a paper checklist of missing work for each at-risk student, using the same professional format as transcripts and report cards.
Impact: Clearer voided states, easier bulk marking for group work, consistent grading behavior (blank = 0 + not submitted), and simpler status management. Students see more accurate labels on inactive, ungraded assignments.
Impact: Grades to Improve is easier to find and use from the Assignments tab, with a cleaner modal design. The Student Home tab is simpler and better organized, with Notifications and Upcoming Assignments displayed side by side.
Impact: Editing assignments works for all types. PDFs and documents display and download correctly for everyone. Google Sign-In is reliable for users who prefer logging in with their Google account.
Impact: Classes can use trusted students to help with attendance and grading while keeping full accountability. Students get clear feedback on graded work. The platform is ready to send email notifications for key events.
Impact: You can void many assignments in one go instead of opening each one. The group assignment creator is simpler (two types only) and easier to scan. Bulk void and group submission behave consistently without extra popups.
Impact: Group assignments behave correctly with due/close dates and stay viewable and gradable. Deleting or changing groups doesn't lose grades, and you can still access them from the Grade page. Teachers and admins are guided by the "What you should know" popup and clearer confirmations. Ungraded students get an automatic 0 after 7 days so grades stay consistent without extra manual work.
Impact: Everyone can pick a theme that fits their preference or the season. Tech can unify the look for the whole school (e.g. holiday or winter theme) without changing code.
Impact: PDF/Paper assignments support multiple files and open reliably. Add-assignment and report cards are easier to use and look consistent. In-class assignments get the correct due time automatically. Report card PDFs reflect what was generated and include all quarters and confirmation data. Group grades are safe when groups are deleted or when students change groups.
Impact: Admins and teachers get useful notifications and activity on their home screen. Teachers see extension requests and an accurate student count. Students have a clearer quiz flow and optional read-aloud for every question.
Impact: Teachers and admins can reliably review extension requests with a clearer layout and working actions. Students are notified when their request is approved or rejected. The Communications tab is no longer visible until it is re-enabled.
Impact: Administrators can manage cleaning teams and run inspections from one place. Inspections and team membership are stored in the database. Attendance is easier to track with login-based recording and a clearer, pill-based interface.
Impact: Creating and managing quizzes is faster with sections, bank import, bulk add, paste, CSV, and duplicate. Grade averages are easier to interpret as percentages.
Impact: Admins spend less time switching between assignment pages. Students get clearer, less noisy grade notifications. Report card subjects are easier to maintain. Deployments are safer and the codebase is easier to maintain.
Impact: Students and teachers get a single, clear schedule tied to the class schedule. Visitors see a refreshed home page with the same information and a more modern look. The updates popup is simpler and aligned with the new design. Sign in with Google now works in production without a 400 error.
Release info
Started at v 0.0.0
Improvements 2,540+ updates shipped
Release window June 12, 2026
This number honors where we began—a blank v 0.0.0 prototype—and the 2,540+ fixes, features, and design passes that shaped today's portal.