Hey Kevin,
If districts are contemplating implementing alternative grading for 2nd semester (Secondary schools) and 3rd trimester (Elementary schools) like Pass/Fail or Credit/No Credit, does Aeries have any suggestions on the best way to do this or have any ideas on the total impact this would have? Thank you for your guidance.
Hello,
I sat through yesterday's CalPads CIM meeting and they specified that for STAS reporting at EOY, we should be reporting any actual student attendance from 2/29 to the day we actually closed (for us that was 3/13) but no attendance is required after the school closure. Can you please advise how we will be indicating that in the STAS if we are not changing calendars?
@Heather - We will be making some adjustments to Attendance History to only calculate attendance data until a specified date, so that no changes to the school calendar will be necessary. This data would then be reported correctly for the STAS extract. This is in development and will be released in the coming weeks in time for EOY reporting.
@Leanne - Aeries Supports P/F and CR/NC marks right now. They would need to be configured on the Update Valid Marks page. Additionally, we are planning to adjust our UC/CSU calculations to accommodate recently announced policy changes on A-G Completion Logic for Spring and Summer 2020 Course Completions.
Kevin,
I manage Aeries for SLOCOE and have not received any email regarding any of this info.
How do I get on the email list? I do not know who is on the list for us.
Thank you,
Wendy Johnson
We made some updates today.
Today we published an article on modifying the Calendar to Maximize ADA. There is specific section addressing our current school year and the current COVID-19 situation.
Update 5/11/2020
Hi Kevin,
How are you handling STAS for new students who enrolled after last day of in-class attendance for distance learning? CSIS is saying we need to send up a STAS record for new students who enrolled after our last day of in-school attendance but we can exempt them. Is there a way to auto-exempt them based on the new date field in District Options for our last day of attendance if the student's first day of enrollment falls after that date? Or should we just add a new STU.SP code, tag the new students, and include that in CALPADS Extracts > Other Options (STU.SP values for STAS Exemption)?
We are in communication with CALPADS on the issue of students who were enrolled after February 29. It sounds like they will be issuing some guidance in a flash update to treat these students like normally enrolled students, except that they will recommend using the STAS Eemption Indicator instead of submitting attendance for these students. We don't currently have a way to add exemptions for these students automatically, however I would imagine the number of students in this situation is not many and can easily be managed on the CALPADS end. We'll consider making some adjustments, but will want to look for official guidance from CALPADS before doing so. We don't recommend using the STU.SP field to mark these students.
Update 6/16/2020
Hi Kevin,
I see the 6/16/20 update on researching recommendations and best practices in response to CDE's Stronger Together guidelines. I know for many Districts and the secondary schools in them, a major learning curve will be to figure out how to do the Master Schedule. As seen in the CDE document, many will be doing configurations where you divide your total students in half, thirds, or fourths, depending on what your school size and classroom capacity for socially-distanced desk arrangements can be. An example of this is a school that divides school in half with some students coming Mondays/Thursday and the other half coming Tuesday/Friday and Wednesday being a distance learning day for all students. How do we move from course requests to SMS then MST maintaining the kids on seperate sections for this type of configuration?
@Michael, there are several, probably dozens of ways to split up the students, but ultimately they will likely need to be in separate sections and then those sections set accordingly to the days of the week they meet. Our support team, or even your district IT team, can likely provide more detailed guidance for your specific scenario. Right now there's a lot going on and lots of changes happening every day. I want you to know we are here to support schools as best we can during these crazy times. If you're interested in learning about some new options (in addition to traditional SMS/MST scheduling), we're offering several webinars on Flex Scheduling in July. You can sign up for these on our events page. We are providing some time for Q&A during these sessions as well.
Any idea when the flex scheduling option will become available?
I would like to know as well. I completed the survey at the end of the webinar and I brought it up in my rollover ticket. We would like to be converted so we can start working through it so an ETA would be great!
Kevin Praeger
Aeries Software wants our customers and the community to know that we are here to support them through these challenging times. This page contains all information that we have released related to COVID-19 (Coronavirus). We will continually update this page as we gain new information or resources.
*Updated August 18, 2021
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For Elementary schools without master scheduling that are looking at dividing students into multiple groups to attend on different school days and/or different school times.
Wednesday, July 29 – 10:00 – 11:30AM
Session Recording: https://aeries.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/aeries/recording/playback/e84881ecdc61478d865e41ef9e3aa15e
Elementary with Master Scheduling (K-6) - Hybrid and AM/PM
For Elementary schools with master scheduling that are looking at dividing students into multiple groups to attend on different school days and/or different school times.
Wednesday, July 29 – 2:00 – 3:30PM
Session Recording: https://aeries.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/aeries/recording/playback/abadfb52eab14efc8776de06f7bc793f
Secondary - Middle/High Schools - Hybrid with Synchronous learning
For secondary schools that are looking at dividing students into multiple groups to attend on different school days with Synchronous Learning
Thursday, July 30 – 10:00 – 11:30AM
Session Recording: https://aeries.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/aeries/recording/playback/2ab0ae65ab314f728bce70b125f7bbc3
Secondary - Middle/High Schools - Hybrid with Asynchronous learning
For secondary schools that are looking at dividing students into multiple groups to attend on different school days with Asynchronous Learning
Thursday, July 30 – 2:00 – 3:30pm
Session Recording: https://aeries.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/aeries/recording/playback/52ebebe6e3fd42d7aa97a0ec89e4967a
Flex Scheduling allows for staggering and overlapping schedules with no limit of time periods. This will be perfect for schools looking at on premise distancing scheduling in the fall and when Aeries traditional scheduling will not meet their needs.
Thursday, June 18 – 9:00am
Session Recording: https://aeries.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/aeries/recording/playback/399acf12a15e435d85a3b3200b6f27db
Update 7/20/2020
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Update 4/3/2020
Update 4/2/2020
Online Learning URL added to Class Summary. This is in addition to the website, so teachers can post an additional URL for students and parents.
Further refine School and District Messages UI to make messages more prominent. This will allow schools and districts to post a message that will display prominently.
Aeries online portal messages and teacher/student file and document sharing using "Teacher Briefcase" and “Student Backpack"
Manage parent and student requests to reset their password from home.
Display VPC code to teachers and other users to allow teachers to help create parent and student portal accounts if needed. This can be turned on via a district option.
Portal Usage Log can be utilized to see which parents and students are interacting with the Aeries Portal
View feedback messages from parents/students they may have sent in the app (can't login to portal, etc.)
District Assets - to manage the distribution of Chromebooks and other resources to students starting Distance Learning.
FREE online self-paced professional development for Aeries SIS day-to-day work and teacher activities.
For those using Aeries Communications (powered by Parent Square); here is a great link on how to communicate about the stresses of school closures.
Soon to be released, our Aeries Teacher App. This iOS & Android app can provide student and Aeries information for teachers along with direct access to Aeries Communications (for those participating districts).
And lastly, if you missed the Spring CUE conference this year, come by our virtual exhibit hall booth and learn about our Aeries Teacher Toolkit.
Update 3/26/2020
Update 3/20/2020
Update 3/19/2020
Update 3/27/2020
Update 3/18/2020
Update 3/16/2020
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