Parent and Family Portal FAQ

  1. What is the Parent and Family Portal?
  2. What is required to access the Parent and Family Portal?
  3. Do I need to sign up if I already have an existing FamilyNet account?
  4. Who is eligible for a Parent and Family Portal account?
  5. How do I sign up?
  6. How do I change my email address?
  7. How do I change my phone number(s)?
  8. How do I change my password or security questions?
  9. I forgot my password. How do I reset my password?
  10. I forgot my username to log in. How do I retrieve it?
  11. How do I link to my students?
  12. What is a Temporary Student Verification Code?
  13. What if I don’t have a telephone, or I don’t have access to the student phone numbers listed on the form?
  14. I don’t want my student’s information visible to anyone in the Parent and Family Portal. How do I “opt out” for my student(s)?
  15. How do I see my student’s classes, attendance, and grades?
  16. How do I sign up to receive email, text messages and other notifications from my student’s school?

_______________________________________________________________________

  1. What is the Parent and Family Portal ?
    The Parent and Family Portal is a way for you to access your student’s school and academic information on your computer, including classes, attendance, grades and instructional materials. The portal also allows you to sign up for telephone, email or text message notifications from your student’s school such as weather-related school closing announcements. In the future, the Parent and Family Portal will be used for additional functions including on-line school applications and parent surveys.
  2. What is required to access the Parent and Family Portal?
    The Parent and Family Portal can be accessed from almost any web browser and a computer connected to the Internet.
  3. Do I need to sign up if I already have an existing FamilyNet account?
    Yes. If you’ve previously signed up for a FamilyNet account to access your student’s academic information, you will need to create a Parent and Family Portal account in order to access that information. However, if you have one or more students enrolled in the School District of Philadelphia, you will only need one Parent and Family Portal account to access all of your students’ information.
  4. Who is eligible for a Parent and Family Portal account?
    You must be a parent or guardian of one or more students actively enrolled in a K-12 school that is managed directly by the School District of Philadelphia. Parents or guardians of a student that is enrolled in a Philadelphia charter, archdiocesan or private school are not eligible.
  5. How do I sign up?
    You can register for an account online – all that you will need is your own personal email address. (If you don’t have a personal email address, you can register for a free email account using Gmail, Yahoo or another similar service) To register for a Parent and Family Portal account, use your web browser to visit https://www.philasd.org/login. Under the green PARENTS section, click on “Register for an Account” and follow the instructions. After you’ve created your account, you will not be able to see your students’ information until you verify your identity and link to your students. Once created, you will always be able to access your account at https://www.philasd.org/login.
  6. How do I change my email address?
    You can change your email address by logging into your Parent and Family Portal account and clicking on the “My Profile” icon. When you change the email address associated with your account, you will receive a message at your new email address with a link to confirm the change. You must click on the link in the message to confirm the new email address. If you don’t click on the link to finish the process, your portal email address will remain unchanged.
  7. How do I change my phone number(s)?
    Your Parent and Family Portal account allows you to choose up to three different telephone numbers that can be used for automated notifications from your student’s school, or from the District’s central offices. For each telephone number you enter, you must choose the way you want the messages to be delivered (voice recording or text message). At any time, you can change the phone number(s) in your portal account by clicking on the “My Profile” icon, changing the number(s) and your delivery preferences, and clicking the “Save” button. Please note that the telephone numbers that you provide in your Parent and Family Portal account will only be used for automated announcements, and will not replace the general and emergency telephone contact information that you’ve provided directly to your student’s school.
  8. How do I change my password or security questions?
    You can click on the “My Security Settings” icon within your Parent and Family Portal account in order to change your password or your security questions. You must select three different security questions and enter personal answers that can be used to recover your password in the future if you should forget it. Each answer must be between 2 and 50 characters long. The case of the letters will not matter, but anything else you type, including spaces and symbols, will be required when trying to answer your security questions in the future. Be sure to select a combination of questions and answers that wouldn’t be known or easily guessed by anyone other than yourself.
  9. I forgot my password. How do I reset my password?
    If you forget your password, just click on “Forgot Your Password?” below the Parent and Family Portal login section ((https://www.philasd.org/login), and then enter your email address to begin the process. You will be asked to answer your security questions to verify your identity. Once you’ve done that, you will be able to reset your password. If you also forgot your security questions, you can request that we send you an email to reset your password.
  10. I forgot my username to log in. How do I retrieve it?
    Your Parent and Family Portal username will always be your email address. If you’re not sure which email address you used to register, click on “Forgot Your Password?” and try each email address you have. If the email address you enter matches one of our accounts, we will display the security questions for that account. If you also forgot your security questions, you can request that we send you an email to reset your password.
  11. How do I link to my students?
    Linking to your Parent and Family Portal account to one or more of your students requires a one-time additional step that helps us to verify your parental/guardian relationship with your child, as well as to protect the security and privacy of all of our students. Once you’ve created a Parent and Family Portal account and are logged in to your account, click the “My Students” icon. You will be asked to provide your student’s personal information as it appears in his or her school enrollment record: first and last name, date of birth and the 7-digit Student Identification Number that your student was given when he or she was enrolled. (You can find this number on your student’s report card. You can also get it by contacting or visiting your student’s school and showing proper identification) Once you’ve entered this information correctly, you’ll need to choose from one of the phone numbers that we have on file for you, where we can contact you with an automated message for verification. Click “Save” and a 5-digit Temporary Student Verification Code will be sent to the telephone number you selected, either by voice recording or text message. When you receive the Temporary Student Verification Code, type it into the form on your computer screen where indicated. If successful, that will complete the link with your student. Once you type in the verification code and it is successfully accepted, you won’t need the code anymore and you’ll be permanently linked to your student. Repeat this process for each of your students.
  12. What is a Temporary Student Verification Code?
    Temporary Student Verification Codes are used to prove your relationship with a student. The verification process requires that either you have access to a telephone number that is already on file in your student’s school enrollment record or that you verify the relationship to your student by visiting your student’s school and speaking with school office staff. Temporary Student Verification Codes are needed only once. However, they are changed weekly on Sunday mornings so if you don’t complete the linking process by then, that Temporary Student Verification Code will expire and you must either repeat the process of choosing a telephone number to obtain a new one or revisit your child’s school.
  13. What if I don’t have a telephone, or I don’t have access to the student phone numbers listed on the form?
    You can also obtain a Temporary Student Verification Code by visiting your student’s school and providing proof of your identity and relationship with your student.
  14. I don’t want my student’s information visible to anyone in the Parent and Family Portal. How do I “opt out” for my student(s)?
    We take your and your child’s right to privacy very seriously and have built-in safeguards to keep student information from being released to people who are not authorized to view it. You can prevent other people from linking to your student by contacting your student’s school. Once you’ve provided proof of your identity and relationship with your student, ask them to turn off parent links for your child.The opt-out option is separate for each student, so you must repeat this process for each of your students.
  15. How do I see my student’s classes, attendance, and grades?
    Log into your Parent and Family Portal account and click on the FamilyNet icon. This will allow you to access the FamilyNet service and web page containing your student’s academic records, including attendance information, grades, standardized test results, individual education or learning plans (if applicable), and other support materials. If you have more than one student, a menu will be displayed on the left side of the FamilyNet window that will allow you to change the information view to see each of your students.
  16. How do I sign up to receive email, text messages and other notifications from my student’s school?
    Once you have linked your Parent and Family Portal account to your student(s), click on the “Parent Notifications” icon to register to receive messages from your student’s school. The “Parent Notifications” screen will allow you to select the types of notifications that you would like to receive through email, as well as on any of the telephone numbers that you’ve defined in the “My Profile” screen. Messages from schools are separated into three categories: General, Attendance, and School Closings. A detailed explanation of these categories is provided on the Parental Notifications page. It is important to note that General and Attendance messages will only be delivered during reasonable daily hours, whereas School Closing announcements may occur at any time including very early or very late in the day. When you opt in to receive School Closing messages you automatically consent that we may contact you at any time of the day or night by the means you specify. School closings due to inclement weather are typically announced at 5:00 AM as an example. If you’ve linked to more than one student, the notification preferences and categories you choose will apply to all of your students’ schools.