Enrollment Workflow

The status of all new student records in the SIS student table is "planned." The start_date field is the student's first day of class, where both the term is in session and the student have been given access credentials.  The start_date may change after a new student record has been created as students sometimes start earlier or later than originally planned.  However, once the student status has been changed to "active", the start date may no longer change.  Also, if the start date has passed, it will be assumed that it will not longer change.

 

Making the Set of Student Term Records

A start date and the student's incoming grade level is all that is required to make the student term records.  The grade level determines the student's grade span.  Student term records are created for the student through the end of the grade_span. when a new student record is created and the two essential fields are not empty. 

Before creating the student term records, PEMS checks if the start date is for the upcoming year. If a start date is in the past, or if the start date is after the end of the current academic year, the student records should not be created automatically.  In this case the administrator must trigger their creation through the user interface.

If a new student record is made that does not have a start date or does not have a current grade level, the student records will not be made automatically.  For this reason, the UI provides a manual trigger (a button) that launches the creation of student records for the grade span.

Starting Mid-Grade Span

Many students will start school in the middle of a term but also in the middle of a grade span.  In this case, student term records are only made for current and future terms, they are not made for past terms in the grade span that a student was not in attendance.

Selecting a Plan

While the student status is "planned" or "active", the student's program (plan) can be selected. Making the decision on what plan to enroll a student in is an important process, it involves discussions with the student and family as well as interpretation of assessment tests that may be taken prior to first day of school, or in the first few days of active enrollment. 

When a plan is assigned to the student, a 'series of classes' are assigned based on the 'template' records associated to the plan.  The 'series of classes' are a set of enrollment records that specify which classes the student will take for the duration of the plan. The duration of the plan may not exceed the grade span, so there will be adequate student term records for the plan.

Enrollment Records are creaed for the duration of the plan, not just from the next term.  So if a student is enrolled in a plan that spans two academic years, the enrollment records are planned out for the next two years, and there are no decisions to be made on classes over this time period.

Based on the enrollment records, the PEMS integration with Moodle will auto-enroll the student in the Moodle courses.  The student will not be enrolled in Moodle courses until the beginning of the term.  Where the enrollment reocrds in the PEMS are created for the full duration of the term, the Moodle course enrollment in term by term only.

Mid Plan Enrollment

Each plan speficies a starting grade level and a starting term.  So a student who joins the school late in the school year may be assigned a plan that has started in the previous term or even the previous year.  These students will not complete the full plan as they will start the plan mid-way through.  We do not want to create enrollment records for terms the student never attended at the school.

PEMS creates enrollment records according to the template, but skips enrollments that required for past terms.  Enrollment records are created only for the current term and future terms of the plan.

Triggering the Plan

When the student first enters the SIS side, which is the same as whenever a new student record is created, all the student terms are created untill the end of the grade span.  However the program plan may not be determined on the CRM side, this field may only be set on the SIS side.  When the program plan is selected, the enrollment records are automatically created.  The user interface verifies the user wants to select this plan and create enrollments.

Changing the Plan Prior to Start Date

Chagning the plan prior to start date is straight forward, all the previous plan's enrollment records are delted and the new plan's enrollment records are created.

Changing plans very shortly after courses started

A student may start plan and decide the courses are not at all appropriate.  A new plan must be selected.  In a user-determined time frame, like less than two weeks for example.  The plan may be changed, casuing all related enrollment records to be deleted, and all corresponding Moodle Course enrollments  to be delted, and starting over with a new plan, new enrollment records and new Moodle course enrollments.  None of the student's previsous work will be saved or credit given.  The user inteface should require a reason for a plan being changed so soon after the student started the plan.

note: whenever there is a plan change, the plan change begin and end dates (how long the student was enrolled in that plan) is stored so that plan history may be viewed.

Changing plans after courses started and some completed

Once the courses have been started, changing plans is more complicated since the the student will have completed some of the plans courses. but not others.  So enrollment records that have not yet started will be deleted, but enrollment records the student has already completed will not be deleted.  Changing plans after the courses have been started is not part of the enrollment process and is discussed separately.

Work Flow Summary

Scholl Configr

Configure grade levels, grade spans, and schools

Configure term label database

Create academic year records

create