For two straight years, students have come to either love or hate Veracross. According to their website, Veracross is a “school information system.” And since 2015, students have been using this database to view assignments and grades. However, now that it has been updated, they have to learn a new layout all over again.

Approximately a week before school started, Veracross received a completely new interface. At first glance, the layout of Veracross has completely changed and bears no similarity to the previous version. The shifting of functions is not appreciated by many upperclassmen, who are frustrated by updates and are confused on how to navigate the site. The update makes it harder to do simple tasks such as submit items to a dropbox and even view your schedule.

However, both of these aspects can and should definitely be changed. There used to be multiple calendars to differentiate between athletics and academics, but now these functions are less visible and placed on the side.

The amount of difficulty it takes to reach a dropbox has increased substantially and arguably wastes more of a student’s time. It is required that students submit each assignment individually from each class page, and they no longer have the option to do it all at once.  It’s even worse that students never received any formal training to help them navigate the new Veracross.

It’s easy to forget that you have an option to view your report card, schedule, or assignments from the updated student portal because these features are shoved to the side and in small print at the top. Rather than having them directly in your line of vision when you look at the home page as in the previous version, they are hardly visible when you open Veracross, leading to even more frustration.

It would be handy if the messages appeared below the week calendar like before, but unfortunately, that is not the case. Again, this function has been relocated to the side of the screen, much like many other necessary functions. Students could completely miss important messages concerning events or assignments simply because they have been pushed over. The new Veracross layout is hard to navigate and not user friendly.

There is still an option to view your schedule, but it is a waste of time trying to find it. The schedule does not appear at first sight or even second glance, therefore one has to do some digging. To have a schedule link invisible is bad planning and should be changed. In older versions of Veracross, a student’s schedule was visible right when you opened the portal. The schedule should appear on the front page, so that it is easier for students to access it.

Despite the fact that functions have been moved around, the above problems can be solved easily, by simply putting important functions in clear view. Something as simple as the dropbox taking fewer steps or the schedule appearing on the homepage could make a major difference for the positive. With these changes, the new look will be further improved and the major issues relating to accessibility will be resolved for the good of students, teachers, and parents.

Annemarie Bonner is a Perspectives Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.