Students Table Overview
Relevant Topics
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.
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 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 term is the division of the academic year into grading periods. Terms may be semesters or quarters. The term record is a record that indicates the start and end date of each term. Multiple terms are related to academic years. Terms are also related to a Term Label record.
Enrollment is the process of signing up for a class. An enrollment record in the PEMS is the class as student takes in a specific term, and stores the student's final grade. The set of completed enrollments is the information displayed on the student's transcript.
The plans are sometimes referred to as "Programs of Study." Plans are defined by the administrator as a series of classes taken across all subjects to meet an educational objective or graduation requirements over a grade span. Any number of plans may be developed, and a student may be assigned only one plan at a time. The plan contains the information needed to auto-enroll student in their classes (create enrollment records) in each term covered by the plan.
Contact Information
Contact information is not kept in the Student table, this information is managed on the CRM side of PEMS.
Student Code
The code is automatically assigned by PEMS and can not be changed by the user. The code is the student ID.
Start Date and Start Grade Level
The Start date and start grade level are critical fields for new students. The start date is the student's first day of school. The start grade level field reflects the student's grade level when they started school on the start date.
Based on these two fields, the student's first term, graduation date, remaining year, enrollment year terms, and total remaining terms are automatically calculated. These fields are updated when there are any changes to the input fields.
Current Grade Level
The student's current grade level is increased every year on the date specified by the school administration. Unless the user selects the Promotion field to be "repeat" all students are automatically promoted to the next grade level.
Grade Span
The grade span field represents a planning horizon. In general, students are assigned a specific plan that specifies classes to be taken for the entire grade span. The grade span is determined and updated based on the student's current grade level.
Status
Planned
The student status field reflects the students enrollment at the school. All new student records have status = planned. Student records are only made for students with a high probability of starting school and have completed the registration process.
Active
When the start date is reached, the student status is automatically updated to "active." However, the user may update the active state prior to the start date. When the student is updated to active, the start date is set to the day the status field is changed, and student accounts are made throughout the system so that the student is granted full access to the system.
Dis-enrolled
TBD
Graduated
TBD
Expelled
TBD
Suspended
TBD
Current Program
The current program is the active plan the student is working on. Plans may be assigned, and deactivated, but PEMS still keeps track of any plan the student worked whether or not that plan was completed. Once the student has a plan assigned, PEMS auto-enrolls the student in all the classes specified under that plan.
GPA
All the classes a student has taken within a school are averaged to find the GPA. Note: Schools cross over grade spans.