The end of another school year is approaching. It is a good idea to begin thinking of the steps necessary to close out the 2009-10 school year and prepare for the upcoming 2010-11 school year. A review of these processes is very important, especially since it is only done once a year. Below are links to past newsletter articles covering these topics:

Calendar Administration:

• April 2008 – End-of-Year Checklist
• May 2008 – End-of-Year Best Practices (less detail)
• Spring 2009 – End-of-Year Processes (more detail)

Post Grades:

• April 2008 – End-of-Year Checklist
• May 2008 – End-of-Year Best Practices (less detail)
• Spring 2009 – End-of-Year Processes (more detail)

Post Transcript Grades:

• April 2008 – End-of-Year Checklist
• May 2008 – End –of-Year Best Practices (less detail)
• Spring 2009 – End-of-Year Processes (more detail)

Roll Forward Enrollments:

• April 2008 – End-of-Year Checklist
• May 2008 – End-of-Year Best Practices (less detail)
• Spring 2009 – End-of-Year Processes (more detail)

End Enrollments:

• April 2008 – End-of-Year Checklist
• May 2008 – End-of-Year Best Practices (less detail)
• June 2008 – Ending Student Enrollments
• Spring 2009 – End-of-Year Processes (more detail)

EOY Reports:

• April 2008 – End-of-Year Checklist
• May 2008 – End-of-Year Best Practices (less detail)
• Spring 2009 – End-of-Year Processes (more detail)

User Accounts:

• April 2008 – End-of-Year Checklist
• May 2008 – End-of-Year Best Practices (less detail)
• June 2008 – Ending Staff Accounts in NASIS
• Spring 2009 – End-of-Year Processes (more detail)

There are new and exciting changes to the process inbox. The process inbox is basically used for any processed or pending messages that were either created for inside of school or for messages that were sent outside of school.

ENLARGE

The following modifications have been made to the process inbox:

• Multiple messages can be deleted from the process inbox at one time using the “Delete Selected Messages” button.
• Messages can also be filtered by date range and/or by type to allow for easier management.
• The columns can be sorted depending on user’s preference, and the step column has been changed to “Name.”

In our last issue (Spring 2010), we covered Composite Grading for Administrators at the course level. This issue will focus on teachers using the Composite Grading tool at the section level, which allows them to assign their own percentages to Grading Tasks.

The difference between the two is that when composite grading is used by administrators, it assigns the composite grading percentages to the course and all sections of that course. When composite grading is used by teachers, it allows them to assign it to individual sections, rather than all the sections. Please keep in mind that any composite grading configured on the section level will override any composite grading that is configured on the course.

The Validation Report has had a minor “facelift.” New functionality has been added to help the schools identify data inconsistencies. The Validation Report was created last year to help schools identify data errors with a series of alerts that appear on the report. From these alerts, users can see where the data issue is occurring and can click on an HTML link that will take them to this area for easy correction - no need to navigate back to the area and “find” the issue.

Users may run this report to display errors, warnings or both. Users may also choose to run this report for all categories of validations or for only the sub-groups they want to analyze. The sub-groups include: behavior, gifted and talented, ISEP, LEP, SPED, and graduation. Users can also run the report to validate their school’s calendar to help determine proper set up in the current year, as well as previous school years. The “facelift” is the new field that requests users to input the ‘Last Friday of October’. See the screen-shot below for the location of the report and the options that users can select when running the report.

ENLARGE