The Programs of Study Function

The PEMS was designed to plan out a set of classes (such at Algebra I, World History, English, and so on)  that the student will take over the course of a grade span.  A grade span covers multiple years of schooling and represents a planning horizon where student objectives can be achieved.

The core functionality of the PEMS is to allow administrators the ability to pre-plan any number of "programs of study", which are called plans inside of the PEMS.  The student can then be assigned a plan, which provides the information needed to auto-enroll the student in classes every term until the plan is complete.

This approach differs from many other record keeping approaches. In most countries, students are assigned subjects, such as English, Math, History and so on, that they must take in every year, and there is only only curriculum or syllabus that a school provides in the subject for that grade level.  This is the same approach taken in the US for Grades K through 8, but not for the high school years, grade 9 through 12. In High school, students pick their individual classes each term, much like University level education.

An unfortunate disadvantage to allowing students to pick their own classes is that they might not meet all the graduation requirements.  In creating a plan instead of picking individual classes, the administrator can ensure that students are meeting their various requirements for graduation. And by enrolling a student in a plan, the administrator ensures the student meets the requirements.  By creating multiple compliant plans, a school can offer a great deal of customization in the program, while ensuring all requirements are met.

A plan is not just a list of courses required to meet graduation requirements, a plan sets out which class must be taken in which term.

When students are picking and choosing their classes, many technologies are unable to provide an instant assessment on whether the student will complete their graduation requirements.  With this approach, at any point in time, a student's enrollment records can be viewed as a whole. And because each record is marked complete/incomplete, one can immediately asses a student's progress towards their academic goals.