GETTING STARTED
Most of your questions will be answered by visiting:
LOGIN AND ACCESS
My Ancona switched the parent login method to use a BlackBaud ID in February 2022. This requires each parent to follow these instructions.
Note that in order to receive a new invitation, you can send a request to using this email link It is recommended that you link your BlackBaud ID to sign in with Google so that you will not have to comply with the stringent requirements (long password that needs to be changed frequently) that BlackBaud imposes otherwise.
All current Ancona parents and guardians have access to My Ancona. If you think you should have it and do not, please send an email to the registrar (registrar [“at” symbol] anconaschool.org. When prospective parents fill out an inquiry form, they are assigned a My Ancona login with a few days which is used to fill out the application and go through the rest of the admissions process. When a contract is offered to a new family, any additional custodial parents will receive My Ancona accounts that will be used to review and sign the contract as well as other forms. The same accounts that are used in the admissions and contract process remain in place as a prospective student becomes a student. Parents of incoming students will have access to the parent resource board on My Ancona, but class information will not be visible until a few weeks before school begins.
All of your child’s teachers email addresses, which can be found by visiting your student’s “progress” page (click “Children” or your child’s name at the top left portion of My Ancona), then scroll down to view classes and teacher emails.
DIRECTORY
What people can see depends on their role. Anyone with a login (faculty/staff, parents, and students) can by default see contact information, your photo, and your family relationships. Teachers of your child(ren) can view things such as medical alerts, allergies, and learning profiles.
As a parent, you can adjust your privacy settings to have fine-tuned control over exactly which information of yours is visible to other types of users. Student information available on the directory is limited to name, grade level, classroom, and relationship information. Only a student’s own parents and faculty and staff can see more detailed information about the student. When adding sensitive information, you as a parent can choose which roles should be allowed to view this information, although the school may restrict this further to comply with HIPAA and FERPA guidelines.
The My Ancona directory is password protected and only available to people within our community. We ask that all parents comply with the following privacy policy:
The information in The Ancona Family Directory is intended for the private use of our families. Information should be used only for personal (i.e. birthday parties, play dates, etc.) and school-related (i.e. pot lucks, room parents, volunteers, etc.) business. The information herein may not be used for parent business or advocacy nor may it be distributed to third parties. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.
There are security measures in place that will alert us if a member of the community fails to comply with this policy. Failure to comply may result in suspension of access to the directory and/or other punitive measures.
The Directory tool is found on the top navigation bar of the site. While the basic functionality is fairly intuitive, here are some key advanced features:
- Controls on the right of the search results let you filter based on grade level (parents and students, faculty), homeroom (students), and department (faculty)
- You may download a printable version of the results of a search (not available on the student directory)
- The search results can be displayed in “list view”, “grid view”, or “map view”. In order to view an individual’s information, it’s useful to view their Contact Card by clicking the Options button (sometimes denoted with three dots) and selecting “Contact Card”
- You can add people to your contacts, which lets you pull up a quick list of friends and/or teachers who you’d like to look up often using My Contacts under the Directories menu.
ENROLLMENT CONTRACTS
While the enrollment contract process is mostly straightforward, a few steps such as signing in with your existing Smart Tuition account are best done with the help of these instructions.
Beginning in 2021-22, information about what’s happening at a particular grade level grouping may be found on it’s community group page, which is updated with information about all classes at that grouping. classroom bulletin boards are no longer used as way for teachers to communicate with parents, but class rosters and lists of assignments and scores can be found for older students. Preprimary, 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th grade parents will be invited to join Seesaw which gives insight into the learning of their student. Middle school parents are invited to sign in to see their child’s assignments and scores directly in My Ancona. To navigate, click on your student’s name in My Ancona (top left) and look for a list of classes under the “progress” tab.
Preprimary Community Group
1st/2nd Grades Community Group
3rd/4th Grades Community Group
5th/6th Grades Community Group
7th/8th Grades Community Group
Alternatively, you can also look at the Calendar view, which includes student assignments. By toggling off the other calendar items, you’ll get a clear view your child’s assignments. To get more details on a particular assignment, simply click on it.
Note that while all students 3rd-8th grade will be able to log into My Ancona to view their assignments, teachers at different levels often encourage them to keep track of assignments using a paper organizer or homework sheet.
My Ancona Community Group Pages are the central spot for teachers to post content important for parents at each grade level grouping. Information includes teacher bios, contact info, announcements, and information about what’s happening in the classroom, and more!
You’ll only have access to each of your children’s grade-level groups:
Preprimary Community Group
1st/2nd Grades Community Group
3rd/4th Grades Community Group
5th/6th Grades Community Group
7th/8th Grades Community Group
Student “Progress” page
By visiting the “Progress” tab for your child in My Ancona, you will be able to view:
- Your chid(ren)’s schedule
- Download files related to your child(ren)
- Up-to-date attendance information
Middle School classroom pages will be used to assign student homework and sometimes to distribute links and certain information important to the student. While parents may visit the classroom page of their student, it is usually best to visit the “Progress” tab for their student by clicking the student’s name in the upper-left corner. This page will give you access to your child’s assignments, and in 7th/8th grade their grade book. You will also see a list of each of your child’s classes and teachers (with contact info) along with a class roster.
P3 through 4th grade parents may also visit their child’s “Progress tab” in My Ancona, but since Seesaw is used at these levels these pages are relatively static. Announcements and other updates for these levels are found on the Community Group page (look for “Groups” at the top of the page).
Calendars
- View a combined calendar that shows upcoming assignments, events specific to your child(ren), and daily schedules alongside the Ancona Events calendar
- Subscribe to the combined calendar, or hand-pick which event types to subscribe to.
Parent Resources Page
- This is a central hub for links to information you need as a parent. It is used to access the Magnus Health Portal, and the pickAtime conference scheduling system. You’ll also find lots of useful links and articles ranging from how to keep your students safe online at home and how to sign up for after school music lessons.
News
- View news that is specific to you and your family, such as announcements from your child(ren)’s grade level groups — to subscribe to changes, please use these opt-in instructions. Note that “Need to know” information will also be sent via email.
Community Groups
- Each grade-level grouping has a “Community Group” page that acts as an extra way for teachers to keep parents informed of what’s happening at that grade level. You’ll find information about teachers at that level, units of study, and other timely information for that grade level here. Teachers will post “News” to give a window into the student experience. They will also post announcements and events, both of w which will be sent via email as well. You may subscribe to be notified by email when teachers add news or announcements by adjusting your notification settings.
Directory
- Student, Parent, and Faculty directory directories that allow you to search by grade level, advisory, etc.
- View contact cards that include a detailed bio and photo, or simply find their contact info.
PROFILE, SETTINGS, and UPDATING INFORMATION
The system will first prompt you to validate your profile information the first time you sign in. You’ll be able to adjust contact information about you, your child(ren), and (to some extent) your spouse. Also, please feel free to upload a picture of yourself for others in the Ancona community to view, and consider including something about yourself in the About section next to your photo.
Medical and emergency contact information is now stored in Magnus Health, which is accessible via the parent resource board in My Ancona.
You may also want to take a moment to adjust your privacy settings if you’d like fine-tuned control over who can see certain parts of your profile.
The school will continue to communicate need-to-know items and weekly newsletters directly via email, but now you can also subscribe to be notified about certain events and updates to My Ancona by adjusting your notification settings.
Starting in the 2021-22 school year, “Health Emergency Contacts” in Magnus Health double as people authorized to pick up your child in an emergency.
In order to avoid miscommunication, It’s always best to communicate directly with both your child and their teacher if someone other than a parent will be picking up. Please send an email to or call the main office if someone other than a parent will be picking up your child from after school.
Log in and visit your profile by clicking your name toward the top of the screen. Edit your profile—also known as your Contact Card—by clicking on the pencil icon. Your changes will be reviewed by staff before being finalized and posted.
In most cases, families living in the same home are set up to share certain information, addresses and home phone numbers; changing these joint settings for one family member will update the information for all members of the family. You can also edit certain information in your child’s profile. If you have trouble, please email .
Note that medical information and emergency contacts are stored in Magnus Health, which is accessible via the parent resource board in My Ancona.
Required forms are submitted directly in Magnus Health, which is accessible via the parent resource board in My Ancona. You may direct questions to the Registrar or the school nurse.
Required forms are submitted directly in Magnus Health, which is accessible via the parent resource board in My Ancona. For more information, please visit Preparing for the School Year.
COMMUNICATION
Teachers will send you emails directly from their school email accounts. It’s a good idea to add their email addresses to your address book early in the school year to make sure important emails don’t get filtered into your spam folder. Sometimes, teachers will send emails to parents of a whole class using special group email addresses managed by Ancona. In those cases, parents will only be able to reply to the teacher and not the group as a whole.
Newsletters and All-School Emails
All current parents should receive weekly newsletters, as well as other as-needed community-wide communications from the school. These will come from (most often) or . Please save these two email addresses in your contacts or address book to ensure emails don’t go to your spam folder. While it is possible opt out or unsubscribe from these school-wide emails, we advise against it as they will often contain important, time-sensitive information.
News Notifications
If you opt in to receive News notifications from My Ancona, you will get an email whenever a teacher posts a news item to their classroom page. Whether you sign up for notifications or not, it’s always a good idea to check in on your child(ren)’s class pages regularly, as teachers may post updates that are not marked specifically as News.
Certain items such as progress reports and class assignments that require individualized content will be sent out from the address. The front desk staff and tech team monitor this account.