Gradebooks and Grading Periods
Overview
School Options have been added to allow a school to be able to do both Elementary Standards Based Grading (SBG) and Secondary Grade Reporting (GRD) in the same school. Grade levels can be defined to specify which grades in the school will use Standards Based Grades (SBG) and which grades will use Secondary Grade Reporting (GRD). When the options are enabled for a school certain areas will adjust to display the appropriate grade reporting configurations and functions for the school and portals. These areas include the Navigation menu, pages in the Portal, the Grade Reporting and Standards Based Grade initialization process and Grading Periods.
When the District option to use Elementary Standards Based Grading (SBG) is enabled, the Standards Based Setup (SBE) page will become available to use in the school. Currently this is available for use in schools up to Grade 8.
NOTE: Elementary scheduling schools do not support using both SBG and GRD. Only SBG is supported in Elementary scheduling schools.
Configurations ↑
Both Standards Based Grades (SBG) and Grade Reporting (GRD) can be configured in the same school. This is enabled initially on the School Info > School Options page at District level. Under the Grade Reporting Types area selections for the two options Elementary Standards Based Grading (SBG) and Secondary Grade Reporting (GRD) need to be set to determine what type of grading will be allowed to be used in the District schools.
After the Grade Reporting Types are enabled at the District level, the School Options page at the School level will also display the two Grade Reporting Types options; Elementary Standards Based Grading (SBG) and Secondary Grade Reporting (GRD).
When an option is enabled at School level, a Grade Range can be defined for which grade levels Standards Based Grades (SBG) and Secondary Grade Reporting (GRD) apply to. This information is stored in the OPT table.
NOTE: The grade range must be populated for the options that are selected.
The Navigation menu will adjust based on these settings for a school. If a school is set as doing both Standards Based Grades (SBG) and Grade Reporting (GRD) the navigation menu within Aeries and the Portal will adjust to display appropriate pages and reports for both Standards Based Grades and Grade Reporting.
If a school is set to only use one of the Grade Reporting Types, the navigation pages and reports will only display for that one specific reporting type within Aeries and the Portals.
The Grade Reporting Type settings will also be referred to for the display and function of the following processes:
- Initialize New Grade Reporting Cycle (GRD)
- Update Grade Reporting Absence Totals (GRD)
- Initialize New Grading Cycle (SBG)
- Update SBG Attendance Totals
In a school that has both Grade Reporting Types enabled, both the Initialize New Grade Reporting Cycle for GRD and the Initialize New Grading Cycle for SBG will be available to create two separate grading tables. When both grade tables are being used in the same school, the initialization processes will look at the School options defined grade levels range for each Grade Reporting Type and will include the appropriate students into the appropriate grade table based on their student grade level.
Grading Periods ↑
Grading Periods has two fields on the Add Grading Period window; GRD Grading Mark and SBG Grading Mark. These fields are used to define which Grade Reporting Type and Grade Reporting Mark each Grading Period is associated with.
When adding a Grading Period determine if it should be used with Grade Reporting (GRD) or Standards Based Grades (SBG). Use the dropdown list to select which Grading Mark the Grading Period applies to.
The SBG Grading Mark or the GRD Grading Mark can be set to be "Not used in SBG" or "Not used in Secondary Grades" if a school wants to use a Grading Period for one Grade Reporting Type but not both.
Gradebooks and Grading Periods ↑
A Grading Type field has been added to the Gradebook Table (GBK.GT). This field will be populated with either GRD or SBG. In a school that has both Grade Reporting type options enabled to use both Standards Based Grades and Grade reporting in the school, the GBK.GT field will populate by comparing the Gradebook's student grade levels with the School Options Grade Reporting Types grade range.
NOTE: The grade range must be populated for the options that are selected.
If only one of the Grade Reporting Type fields is enabled for the school the GBK.GT field will populate with the appropriate value of either SBG or GRD.
When the Use Grading Periods Instead of terms in Gradebook option is enabled and both of the Grade Reporting Types are being used in the school, teachers will have a Grading Type option display in the Add and Edit Gradebook area.
In the Gradebook Add/Edit area two Grading Types will be available:
- Based on Elementary Standards Based Grades (SBG)
- Based on Secondary Grade Reporting (GRD) including Course Based Standards - GRS
When Add or Edit Gradebook is used the Grading Type will default to the appropriate option for the teacher based on the Teacher LO/HI value in the TCH table and compared with the SBG and GRD grade ranges in the school. The Grading Type selected will determine which Grading Period is used with the Gradebook.
NOTE: These Grading Type options will only display to teachers it they are not using a Gradebook Template when creating their gradebook.
The Mass Add Gradebook process will look at the Grade Reporting Type options and will do the following:
- If a school is only using one of the Grade Reporting Types (SBG or GRD) then the appropriate Grading Type (GBK.GT) will be set when the gradebooks are mass added based on the selected Grade Reporting Type for the school.
- If a school is using both Grade Reporting Types (SBG and GRD) then the Grading Type (GBK.GT) for the Gradebooks will be based on the Course LO/HI grade compared with the SBG and GRD Grading option Grade Ranges that were defined in School Options.
The Copy Gradebooks process will look at the Grade Reporting Type options and will do the following:
- If a school is only using one of the Grade Reporting Types (SBG or GRD) then the copied gradebooks Grading Type (GBK.GT) will be set to either SBG or GRD based on the Grade Reporting Type selected for the school.
- If a school is using both Grade Reporting Types (SBG and GRD) then the copied gradebooks Grading Type (GBK.GT) will be the same as the copied from gradebooks Grading Type (GBK.GT).