Support

Anyone care to share how you are using the Family Key feature? I am trying to codify some data procedures for our district that up until now have been word of mouth. One of these is who should or should not get tagged with the same family key. I have been TOLD that we only use it with biological siblings and legally adopted sibs, not step-sibs, foster kids, etc. - even if they are living in the same household.

Michael,

The Family Key is a data processing function within the Aeries student information systems software.  

How your LEA decides to use the function is a data processing policy.

Data Processing Function Feedback

From a database admin perspective, I not recommend using the mass assign family key function.

Rather have the school sites use the sibling look up function for data integrity purposes.

Our LEA process is to have the school sites match up siblings.

With that said, your district will have to determine which function works best for your LEA.

Data Processing Policy Feedback

From a data processing policy perspective, the sibling key is extremely important to keep updated.

Our LEA uses the field to track siblings (biological, by marriage, foster, etc.) & also for FRPM auditing.

Your CALPADS data coordinator & your Free and Reduced Meal team both may be relying on this tag.

CALPADS Direct Certification & your FRPM team extend the FRPM status to other students who live in a household where as "a group of related or non-related individuals who are living as one economic unit".

Translation: if a student was granted via CALPADS Direct Certification Free Lunch status, any other student in that household which lives in the same household as "one economic unit" should also be granted free lunch status. These students do not have to be biological siblings - they do not have to be related at all.

Your FRPM and/or CALPADS staff though may be reviewing the family key to verify if those who have been identified as family members are sharing the same FRPM status or not.

Since the Sibling Look up matches Address, Parent/Guardian information, this is a tool to help them find outliers to update their FRPM records.

Our LEA uses the Family Key to track biological siblings, as well as siblings by marriage or any other relative status (cousins as an example) who live in the same household.

With high proportion of multi-family homes, it can be tricky to manage,the Family Key in Aeries.

This is why I recommend the school staff use the sibling look up vs mass updating due to the complexity.

We do not mass assign since living in the same household doesn't mean they are related.

This is why I do not recommend Mass Assigning the Family Key.

We do include other family relationships, regardless of how their family relationship status was created.

If they are related to each other, they are tagged with a Family Key - regardless if same address or not.

Our FRPM team audits the Family Key to verify why any family members with the same address, do not have the same FRPM status. 

They follow up to confirm if the household are separate economic units , so as to determine if a student potentially who should be granted free or reduced lunch status.

I am sure Aeries will have better feedback on this, but this is how we use the function in Aeries platform.