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The page is where admins define grading periods and grade columns needed for grade reports for the whole school. (For teachers to start a new Grading Period, see Gradebooks.) Setting up the grading periods can be tricky for some schools, so please contact us to describe your grading periods and report card grade columns, and we'll be happy to set it up for you. It's much easier to start the year with correct grading periods than to try to reorganize them later. To update your own grading periods, the "Templates" button is the easiest way to configure almost any schedule, including semesters, trimesters, quarters, and progress reporting periods. First select how often teachers should start a new gradebook, then select any cumulative totals, exams, and other grades like effort or citizenship that you may need for report cards. Examples of common schedules: Select "Quarter" for a simple schedule like:
1st Quarter
2nd Quarter 3rd Quarter 4th Quarter Or "Semester" for:
1st Semester
2nd Semester To divide semesters into separate gradebooks each 6 weeks, select "6 weeks" and "Semesters". (However, many teachers don't like to start a new gradebook each six weeks, so it's more common to use two undivided semesters like above.)
1st six weeks
2nd six weeks 3rd six weeks 1st Semester 4th six weeks 5th six weeks 6th six weeks 2nd Semester Select "Quarter", "Semesters", "Year Average", and "Final Exams" for a schedule like:
1st Quarter
2nd Quarter Final Exam 1 1st Semester 3rd Quarter 4th Quarter Final Exam 2 2nd Semester Year Average Select "Quarter", "Year Average", and "Final Exams" for a schedule like:
1st Quarter
2nd Quarter 3rd Quarter 4th Quarter Final Exam Year Average Once you have a basic template, you can further customize the schedule and enter the start and end dates for each grading period. Exact dates are important, otherwise everyone will be confused when changing grading periods. Teachers may weight these grading periods on the page — e.g., to make each quarter 40% and the exam 20% of the total semester grade. WARNINGS: • Adding or deleting grading periods may reorganize all teachers gradebooks, so it will force everyone at your school to logout, possibly losing any changes on the page they are currently viewing. For this reason you should go to the Setup Staff page and click to see if anyone is currently logged in, or announce to your staff in advance before you edit the grading periods. (But merely modifying the dates, descriptions, or abbreviations, without adding or deleting anything, is harmless and will not logout anyone.) • If you remove any grading periods, that will cause changes to teachers' gradebooks that cannot be undone. For example, if you change from a Quarters & Semesters schedule to just Semesters, their 1st & 2nd Quarter gradebooks will be merged into a single gradebook for the Semester and cannot be unmerged.
Please feel free to contact us for advice. A good setup at the beginning of the year will make things much easier when it is time for report cards.
You may define up to four different tracks, in case different students at your school have different grading periods — e.g., for a multi-track year, or a K-8 school where K-5 is on quarters and 6-8 is on cumulative semesters, etc. Teachers can choose which track to use when they create a gradebook (if they teach on more than one track, they must have separate gradebooks for each). When you start a new year, select "Summer School is separate from regular school year" if appropriate. Otherwise leave it unchecked if you're on a year-round schedule, and you can simply add summer as one of the terms in your regular school year.
If your school follows the calendar year from Jan. to Dec. instead of the traditional school year from Fall to Spring, select "2009-2010" for the 2010 calendar year. Once you save your grading periods it will rename itself automatically to "2010". When students login to see their current grades, you control whether they see, for example, their subtotal grades for the current Quarter or their cumulative grades for the current Semester. You set this at the bottom of the page (not applicable if you don't have any cumulative grades). This also controls what teachers see in their gradebooks.
This setting applies to the whole school, so students, parents, and teachers consistently see the same grading period for all classes. This affects only the main pages. To see all grading periods, students and parents may click the "Report Card" tab, and teachers may see the page. (If you want this setting different for some classes, you must define a separate Track for those classes. See above.) |
