Graduation Endorsement Structure

Each Graduation Endorsement consists of at least one pathway. 

• If multiple pathways exist, a student who completes any one of the pathways will fulfill the Endorsement.

Within each pathway, at least one requirement must be created. 

• If multiple requirements exist in the endorsement pathway, all of the requirements must be fulfilled for the student to complete its pathway.

Within each requirement, at least one course cluster must be created. 

• Each course cluster is an option that will fulfill its requirement. 
• If multiple course clusters exist, any one of the course clusters can fulfill its requirement. 

Each course cluster has a total number of required credits and a list of courses. Courses can be required or not required (but if taken, will count towards the credits needed for the course cluster). Courses can be grouped so that only one choice from the group will count towards the credits. To provide these options, courses in the cluster are grouped using:

• AND section only
  • All courses listed are required and will count toward the Required Credits
• ANY section only 
  • Any selection of courses, within the set of choices, will count toward the Required Credits 
• Both AND and ANY sections 
  • The courses in the AND field are required and will count toward the Required Credits. Additionally, courses under ANY will count toward the rest of the Required Credits

Within both the AND and ANY sets of courses, courses can be grouped under an OR setting. Within the OR section, courses can be linked together within an AND ALSO group, to indicate that all the courses listed within that AND ALSO group are required to fulfil the OR cluster. This is especially helpful when a course is split into two required components, such as Fall and Spring, that together equal the full course.

There is a Max Credit field inside the OR section. The Max Credit field affects the processing as follows: 

• When courses are grouped together under an OR section, only one of the courses, or AND ALSO group of courses,  can be used to fulfil that course cluster when the Max Credit field has a value of 0.  
• If the Max Credit field is greater than 0, multiple courses, or AND ALSO group of courses,  can be taken an counted up to the total Max Credits.  

The graphic below displays how these requirements work together.

Creating a Graduation Endorsement

The Graduation Endorsement Setup page provides a button for adding a new Endorsement Pathway at the top, with existing Graduation Endorsements listed below. To add a Graduation Endorsement, click the Add Endorsement Pathway button.

In this example, a simple Graduation Endorsement, requiring students to take and receive credit for a series of Health classes, will be created.

On the Add Endorsement Pathway page that displays, the first step is to Add New Endorsement Code (if this is the first pathway created for an Endorsement) or select from the list of codes that have already been created (to add a new pathway to an existing Endorsement). Endorsement Codes can be created here or on the Update Code Table page, by adding codes to the GEP.EC field.  

If adding a new endorsement code here, add a code and a description on the popup that displays and press the Save button:

After selecting Add New Endorsement Code or selecting an existing code, enter a name for the new pathway (the pathway name is a required value). Then press the Add Requirement button:

At least one requirement must be added per pathway. Type in a name for the requirement (the name is a required value). If needed, add a Cohort Range. If the Cohort Range is blank, this requirement applies to all cohorts. If a Cohort Range is added, the requirement only applies to students within the Cohort Range. 

In the example above, the requirement will only apply to student in the 2020-2021 cohort and beyond. Students in previous cohorts will not have to fulfill this requirement.

The next step is to add a course cluster. Start by pressing either the Add Cluster or Copy Cluster buttons. The cluster Name is a required field. At least one cluster must be added per requirement.  

If the course cluster will contain any courses that are specifically required, press the AND button. The Course Selection popup will be displayed with various filters to help find Courses.  If a District has more than 1000 Courses, the user will be notified of the number of Courses found and using the Pre-filter is recommended, otherwise only the first 1000 Courses by Course ID will be shown. Expanding the Courses section will display those Courses. 

The Pre-filter can be used to display specific Courses and/or Subject Areas. If there are more than 1000 results returned, only the first 1000 will be displayed by Course ID.

The Additional Filters can also be used to filter the Course list

Once the desired Courses are listed, there are multiple ways that courses can be added: 

• Search box - enter a string of numbers/letters to search the following fields: 
  • ID (CRS.CN)
  • Title (CRS.CO)

• Inactive courses may be selected and are identified in the Stat column
• Also, multiple fields are displayed. click on any header to sort by that item, and some have filters that can be applied
  
  

Here is a sample search using the filter on the Subject Area Code field:

Multiple searches can be made. Any courses already selected will continue to be shown, along with any new courses found by the search terms. Select the OK button when all the desired courses are checked to be included. 

To add a course with an OR, press the OR button by the course. The same Course Selection popup will be displayed. Filter the popup as desired to find the appropriate course. Select it by checking the checkbox and press the OK button:

In the example above, course 22202 is required. Additionally, only one of courses 0765 or 0817 is also required. 

Additionally, two accordion tabs at the top of the Course Selection popup allow choosing courses based on an Academic Plan Course Sequence or based on Course Characteristics. Click on the right side of either tab to expand a tab:

To select courses by Course Sequence, expand the By Sequence tab. From the Course Sequence dropdown, choose a Course Sequence. When Add Courses by Sequence is pressed, all of the courses in the sequence will be added to the course cluster and the Course Selection popup.  If any of the courses are not needed, they can be deleted.

The list of courses will be filtered to only show courses with the associated Course Characteristics. Course Characteristics are set on the Characteristics tab on the Courses page.

Check the checkbox by any course that should be added and press Save at the bottom of the Course Selection popup. 

To add another course to the course cluster under AND, press the AND button. To add more OR choices, press the OR button by the course that will start or continue an OR condition. To delete any of the courses from the course cluster, press the delete button at the end of the appropriate course's row. 

If the Course Cluster will allow credit from a group of courses that may optionally be taken, press the ANY button and add the courses in the same way, but grouped under the ANY category.

Once required fields have been added, the Graduation Endorsement can be saved using the Save button at the bottom. 

Cancel will cancel any changes instead of saving them. The Delete button will delete the endorsement.

After an endorsement has been saved, press the pencil icon by a requirement in an existing endorsement to edit any of the items within that Pathway: