Post-Year-End Processing in the Student Management Suite

#Tips

Lauren Gilchrist

by Lauren Gilchrist

Lauren Gilchrist EdTech Thought Leader

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Congratulations—you finished pre-year-end planning and your year-end process! Take a deep breath and some time to relax, then set yourself up for success this fall with these post-year-end Skyward tips.

Post-processing review

Just like pre-year-end planning, getting into a routine of planning for the next school year over the summer can save a great deal of time and energy. Once you've finished year-end processing:

1. Unlock Skyward (and your brand-new school year) using the same credentials used to lock the system.

2. Follow the post-year-end checklist in SkyDoc to run validation reports and clean up any errors.

3. Your district may have some specific post-year-end processes you've identified. Here are a few examples:

Lock access to Educator Access Plus, Student Access, or Family Access (note this may be done at the entity level, so check them off one by one)
Change security groups
Change administrator names
Change effective years for health records
Print any updated paper copies kept at building level
Match incoming high school freshmen with counselors
Adjust transportation records
Review attendance days and weekends for substitute calendars
Review professional development days
Remove inactivated building staff
Purge records or send permanent records to new buildings
Update district contacts in the system
Clone gradebooks at each entity*

*Note: One of the questions we often get from districts is how to ensure grade calculation methods are set up. Calculation methods typically clone when you carry out your Course Master Clone, unless you choose not to clone all grading at that time. Be sure to verify that each GPA Type you are calculating is set up correctly for each Grade Set. To verify your calculation methods:

Go to Office > Grading Setup > Configuration > GPA Setup > Calculation Methods.
Click the arrow to expand each Grade Set (Set ID). Each row represents a GPA Type that could potentially calculate in Skyward. A 100 should appear under the grade bucket you want the GPA Type to calculate off of.

Planning for next year

It's never too early to start planning for the new school year. Click the link below to view the official First Day of School checklist in SkyDoc. Tasks are split into seven categories:

Attendance
Demographics
Food service
Gradebooks
Grading
Health records
Scheduling

↪ See the First Day of School checklist in SkyDoc

Double check all tasks as you complete them for each entity in your district. You may want to focus on completing all tasks for a single entity, then go back and start the list again for a new entity, so you’re not jumping back and forth in the system.

Wrapping up

Some of the lists involved in year-end processing may take several days to complete, but the preparation is worth the effort. Keep up communication with stakeholders, especially as you get closer to locking out the system. With careful planning, the process should go smoothly for everyone.

Follow-Up Resource: SMS 2.0 Spotlight: Textbook Tracking

At the start of the school year, there’s so much to do: textbooks to hand out, Chromebooks to distribute, Wi-Fi hot spots to give to select students. How on earth do you keep track of it all? Textbook Tracking is here to help.