Alternative Education Scheduling Setup
Overview ↑
Alternative Education Scheduling enhancements have been made to Aeries to assist with scheduling for Alternative Education environments schoolwide. Alternative Education environments can consist of teachers teaching multiple core academic subjects in self-contained secondary-level classes. Some examples are Independent Study, Home Hospital and Court Schools.
The Alternative Education Scheduling for an Entire School option can be accessed by navigating to the School Info > Configurations > School Settings page in the currently logged in school.
This is a school-wide setting that can be enabled but must be used for all student classes. The option will allow sections to be scheduled for students for a specific Alternative Education teacher but will allow the Course ID to be changed for each student as they move in and out of classes throughout the year. Alternative Education Scheduling will eliminate the need for the school to create multiple sections per teacher per subject by allowing the Course IDs to be changed at the Student-Class (SEC) level.
Teachers will have a set of sections for each period in the Master Schedule. These courses will be placeholders for the student's actual classes. The student's Class Course ID (SEC.CN) can be changed into a new course as the student transfers in and out of classes. The section number will remain the same. These classes will post to the Course Attendance page as the Course ID's are changed.
The CALPADS Fall 2 and End of Year extracts will pull the new Student-Class Course ID (SEC.CN) field.
With Alternative Education Scheduling the teacher will now have one section per period.
Alternative Education Scheduling Setup ↑
The following will need to be set up before using Alternative Education Scheduling and will be detailed in this document:
- Enable the option on the School Settings form for Alternative Education Scheduling for Entire School
- Set up Teachers and Staff records for the Alternative Education Teachers for proper CALPADS reporting:
- Staff record must have a valid State Educator ID (SEID) populated.
- Staff Job Assignment - STJ records must be added.
- Highly Qualified Teacher Status - HQT information must be added.
- Create placeholder Courses per period. Course information for the placeholder courses do not need to be populated.
- Sections in the Master Schedule
- Create sections by period. Ex: Period 1 - Alt Ed Period 1, Period 2 -Alt Ed Period 2.
- Populate the section with the Alternative Education teacher number and Staff ID.
- Add sections to a student’s class schedule by using the Period Placeholder Courses created in the previous step.
- When the sections are added, you can change the Course ID to the appropriate Course ID for the individual student.
- When students complete a course and move on to another course in the same period, change the Student's Course ID to the new Course ID on the Classes page.
School Settings ↑
To enable Alternative Education Scheduling for Entire School, navigate to School Info > Configurations > School Settings page. The option only applies to the currently logged in school. This feature can not be enabled from the District.
NOTE: The option defaults OFF and must be turned ON to support Alternative Education Scheduling for Entire School.
There are two Alt Ed Scheduling setting options available, Use Alt Ed Scheduling for Entire School or Allow Individual Sections to be Flagged for Alt Ed Scheduling. These settings are mutually exclusive settings and can only be enabled for one or the other. To turn on this feature for identifying an entire school as using Alt Ed Scheduling, select Change, then select the option Use Alt Ed Scheduling for Entire School and select Save.
NOTE: It is not recommended to remove an Alt Ed Scheduling setting from the School Settings page when a course number has been assigned in the 'actual courses' field in the student classes. Doing so can result in inaccuracies in the Classes page.
When the option is ON, a warning message will display on the Classes form.