Assigning Sections to Curricula ("School Setup")

Last Updated: April 2026 

Intended Audience: Ponder Paper curriculum admins

Context: This article contains the steps for linking course section enrollment (e.g. from PowerSchool) to curricula (i.e. the subjects available in Paper). 

What is Ponder Paper's School Setup page

Ponder Paper uses enrollment data from PowerSchool to generate personalized copies of materials for each student. At least once at the beginning of the school year and whenever new course sections are created mid-year, IT or School Ops staff must set up each school by linking course sections from PowerSchool to the curricula that are available in Ponder Paper. This is a one-time process that must be completed when new sections are created in PowerSchool

Important Note:

School Setup must take place after:

• Course Mapping files by IT are completed
• After course sections have been assigned a teacher and at least one student for each school
• And Curricula Setup (courses and their regional variants) in Ponder Paper is complete (Ponder Admin only article)

Steps:

1. Navigate to "School setup" in the Ponder Paper menu. If you don't see "School Setup" in your menu, contact us at support@ponder.co.

2. Select your school from the dropdown menu at the top of the page. This will bring up a list of the named course sections at your school (based on enrollment data). 

3. Use the filter to search for a particular course, or scroll through the list to select the course you want to link. Click the "+" next to the course to select it.

• Note: Ponder Paper does not require that you link a curriculum to every course/section on the list. For example, you can skip any homeroom courses. Coordinate with the appropriate Curriculum & Assessment Team to identify the courses for which users will print assessments, quizzes, or tickets.
• Each course/section can be assigned to only one curriculum

Note: These sections and students counts come directly from the last PowerSchool refresh. Click on the main menu to see the last run:

4. Assign a curriculum to each section of the course.

• Under "(1) Select a family & edition", search or scroll to find the curriculum needed. Click the curriculum name to select it.
• Under "(2) Select variant," choose the regional variant of the curriculum that the course will use.
  • A note about MS: 
  • If there are going to be any state-aligned assessments (e.g. NY PPQ, NJ PPQ, MA PPQ), then choose the state-level variants for curriculum set-up. For example, in school setup, configure Gr 6 ELA sections with the NY, NJ & MA variant that pertains to that school's location. Then, when Ponder/instructional leaders configure a USI-aligned assessments, the assessment can be published three times for each state. Given that, for MS: ELA & Math will be configured with the state variants, and History & Science will be configured with the USI variant.
• Under sections, use the toggle switches to turn the curriculum "on" for each section that will use it. Teachers, section names, and students can continue to be changed after you take this step (Ponder Paper refreshes enrollment data twice daily).
  • Important Note: Course sections must have a teacher (with a valid email address) and at least one student assigned, in order to appear on this list.
• Click Submit when finished.

5. The number of sections and students will turn blue as you complete them.

Repeat this process for each school and course that will use curriculum or assessments printed from Ponder Paper. 

6. Repeat this process any time new sections are created, including if a section is deleted and replaced with a new section. 

• Important note: during the beginning of the schoolyear it is beneficial to periodically check the School Setup pages as sections may continually change (deleted, replaced, new additions) up until around October. Missing toggled on sections will then become missing packets when schools print exams from Ponder Paper. 
• If schools: change a teacher, change a section name, or update the student roster for an existing section, this Setup process does not need to be repeated. 

7. School Setup warnings: The following is an example of warnings on the School Setup page.

The red icons signify that the PowerSchool data is out of sync with Paper. This will happen whenever PowerSchool is updated since the last refresh. No action is needed as the sections will be back in sync after the next refresh.

However, the yellow icons signify PowerSchool sections that were deleted or replaced.

Action needed: click on the edit icon (the pencil) and verify that the correct sections are toggled on as is mentioned in step 4 above. Under "Sections", use the toggle switches to turn the curriculum "on" for each section that will use it.