School Module Building your school to reflect your mission and vision Schools Definitions Schools refer to legal definitions in a jurisdiction of various grade levels. In the US this is Elementary School, grades K through 5, Middle School grades 6 through 8, and high school, grades 9 through 12. A grade level is the student's year in school, first grade, second grade, third grade and so on.  The term 'grade level is used to differentiate between the grade or mark a student received in a class and the year the student is in. Schools Table A "School" is a span of grade levels. The schools table is a list of the names of the various jurisdictional schools in a region.  There are no additional fields in this table as the other data entities use this primarily as a reference. To customize the PEMS, the administrator edits the list of schools. Out of the Box, the solution comes with Elementary, Middle, and High School defined.Term Labels Term Labels Relevant Definitions Term Labels are the names of the terms a school is running, like Spring, Fall, etc.  The number of Term Label records indicates the number of terms the school operates.  Term Labels indicate if that term is required or optional, like a summer term. Term Label Table The term label table contains a record for each term the school operates. If a school operates two terms, the Fall and Spring Semester, then the Term Label table contains only two records. To operate a summer term, the school can add another term label record. If a school operates on a quarter system, the administrator will create 4 term label records. There is no configuration of 'semester system' or 'quarter system', there is only the number of records in the term label table. Term label records are generalized without a specific start or end date, they linked to every actual term record to give the term its name and configuration parameters. Fields There is no automation for entering Term label records, the user manually sets all data. The name field is the general name for the term, usually aligned with the season, such as Fall, Spring, Winter, etc. Sometimes a letter is also used to refer to the sequence of terms in a school year, like semester A or B, and C if on the quarter system. The sequence field specifies the order of the terms, Fall would be 1, Spring would be 2, and so on. The term may be optional or required, for example summer term is usually an optional term while Fall and Spring are mandatory. An active/deactivated field is provided so that the administrator does not have to delete terms to remove them from the planning processes. Start month and end month are fields the user specifies to indicate the month the term usually starts/ends in.  Start day and end day are the fields the user specified to indicate the day the term usually starts/ends in. Connection to other Modules The Calendar Module calculates the number of school days in a term.  The Excluded days field allows the user to specify which regular days of the week should not be counted as a school day. The Programs of Study Function uses information from the term label table to determine in which student term the student should be enrolled in the planned classes. The Flag field notes if the term starts an academic year or ends and academic year. End in same year - this radio button field is used to indicate if the term runs over the New Year, for example the Fall term may start in September of 2020 but end in January 2021. The Assessment Function relates student assessment results to the actual test date. If the actual test date is within a term, then then the function relates the assessment result to that term. The Assessment Window field allows the administrator to specific a window of time that would mark a type of assessment as 'beginning of term' or 'end of term.'  For example if the window is 2 weeks, then the assessment dates that fall within a two-week window of the actual term start date are marked 'beginning of term' results. Action Items JAN 2024 |4-MVP | ADVANCEMENT | Excluded days multi-select (for recurring weekend days) does not allow the user to select options that are not listed one after the other.  User must be able to make any selection of combination of days.Grade Levels Grade Levels Relevant Definitions A grade level is the student's year in school, first grade, second grade, third grade and so on.  The term 'grade level is used to differentiate between the grade or mark a student received in a class and the year the student is in. A grade span covers multiple years of school and can be defined by the administrator.  A plan can not exceed a grade span.  The purpose of defining grade spans is to help set academic goals and gates. Grade Level Table and Fields Grade levels are specified by creating records for the grade levels the school teaches. The records have a name, which could be "sixth" or "6th" or any user-entered name. The user must also assign a grade level number, such as 6 for the 6th grade,  The records are sequenced to know which grade comes before which so that the name does not have to reflect the order of the grade levels.  The grade span of a grade level is determined from the grade span table, which indicates the start and end grade of the span. This is completed through automation. Action Items JAN 2024 3-MVP | INTAKE | Confirm that the Grade Span Field in the Grade level table is being done by automation.Grade Spans Relevant definitions A grade span covers multiple years of school and can be defined by the administrator.  A plan can not exceed a grade span.  The purpose of defining grade spans is to help set academic goals and gates. Student Terms.  There is one term record for every term the school operates.  A student term record contains student-specific information about how the student performed academically in the term, such as the student's grade point average for that term. All the classes a student takes (enrollment records) are linked to the student term.  A student has a term record created for each term they are in attendance. Schools refer to legal definitions in a jurisdiction of various grade levels. In the US this is Elementary School, grades K through 5, Middle School grades 6 through 8, and high school, grades 9 through 12. Grade Span Table The grade span is used as a planning horizon for students.  PEMS aims to automate enrollment in courses by assignment of a Program of Study.  A program of study can not exceed the student's grade span. Based on the student's grade level, the student is associated with only one grade span. Based on the grade span, PEMS creates past, current, and future school terms.  PEMS does not create all future school terms for the student until graduation, but only until the end of the assigned grade span.  These future term records are required in order to create future enrollment records for future classes. Grade spans should not run over the end of a 'school' If an elementary school is defined as K6, and middle school defined as 6-8, then a grade span should not run from grade 4 to grade 6.  Grade spans are subgroups of schools, or may be the exact same length of time as a school. Fields Grade Span name - any name the user would like to call the grade span. Start grade and end grade are entered by the user.  Based on the term label records, the user will specific the number of terms in the span.  Only required terms should be entered in this field as other parts of the PEMS expects this value to exclude optional terms. The school is selected as a drop down menu based on the records defined in the school table.  There can be multiple grade spans per school, but there can only be one school per grade span.Marks System Mark System Relevant Definitions Letter Mark. In the US, grades are usually awarded as letters, A, B, C, D and F.  There is no grade of E.   Other countries use a straight number system with a maximum of ten.  It is normal to call letter marks just 'grades' in American English, but this can be confusing as a student's grade is also "kindergarten" or 6th grade.  In other countries, this definition of grade is usually called a 'form', like the sixth form.  Letter Mark refers the the letter given in the US for overall course scoring. Grade Points.  Because the US uses letter for marks, there needs to be a numerical system in order to determine how the student is doing over all.  Grade points are awarded based on the letter grade. For example, 4 points are awarded for an A, 3 for a B, and so on. Weighted GPA. students take more advanced courses, the grade points may be increased. For example, if a student earns a A in an advanced English class of 5 units, the student earns a 5 instead of a 4 for grade points for weighted GPA. The total points for that class is 5 (units) x 5 (points) = 25 points (total). Then divide this by totals (5) for a GPA of 5.0. The higher number of points are used to calculate the student's weighted GPA. Lower number of points (4 instead of 5 points) is used for unweighted GPA. Marks System Table The marks system table is used to configure the schools grading system. A record is entered for each type of mark (grade) that may be given to a student. If student are received and A-, the A- must be defined as well as the A.  For each letter grade, the user must specify the grade points to be assigned for the letter grade. If the school is not using letter grades and is on the 1-10 system, then 10 records must be defined.  If the school is using a numerical system that include 9.5 for example, then a record of 9.5 must be created. Fields Letter Mark - letters grade like those used in the US system Grade Points - numerical grades used, corresponding to letter grades if US or just numbers if international. Weighted Grade Points - if the class is advanced and a letter grade assigned, the weighted grade points would be the additional points allowed for the advanced class, which is almost always plus 1. Alternate Grade Points - grade points in the event a different grading system is used Alternate Weighted Grade Points - alternate weighting if a different grade system is used. Action Items JAN 2024 | CLEANUP | Spelling error "Alternet" is spelled Alternate Next Version Add an association of the marks system records to the school, so that marks systems may be defined for each schoolOther Schools - TBD In PEMS, the term "schools" refers to the general grade levels like elementary school, middle school, and high school.  "Other Schools" are the schools where students transferred in from or transfers to.  There is a need to maintain the contact information to request transcripts or to forward transcripts and other student records. A key part of the student intake process is to email an document that has been electronically signed by the student's legal guardian to the other school's registrar email address. Students are not dis-enrolled from their previous school unless the current school sends this request. Fields The user enters the official school name.  A school has a 'registrar' which is an individual person who is identified as responsible from student records.  The email of the registrar will be where the student records request is sent. The physical address is where the student records are forward to. Action Items JAN 2023 - update actions after CRM When the enrollment form is received from the external website to the SIS dashboard, the form contains a typed-in name for the previous school.  When the enrollment form is approved, the user should link the student to the other schools record as the student's previous school.  If the record in not in the other schools table, then the user should add the record during the student's intake. The workflow to automate emailing the electronically signed document needs to be addressed. The third party website can collect a esigned form, but the specific school name and registrar email is maintained in the SIS.  When the previsous school is determined from the typed-in other school name, the form from the third party website needs to be sent to the associated registrar email from Studia Nova. See Page 4 of Enrollment Workflow Specification