6th Annual Focus Users’ Conference

System Preferences

Presented by:Mike Morris

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Agenda:

• School Preferences vs. Default School Preferences• Assigning User Preferences• Attendance-Related Preferences• Exam and Grading Options• Credits, Rank, and Honor Roll• Scheduling and the Course Catalog• Address Options• Change Request System Preferences

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esAccessing and Configuring System Preferences

The System Preferences Menu allows districts to configure options related to the setup and operation of the Focus user interface. These options can be configured on the individual school level, or standardized across the district. In order to select the appropriate preferences, navigate to the Setup Menu and select System Preferences.

When accessing System Preferences, School Preferences relate to the school selected in the top-right corner of the interface, while Default School Preferences will apply to all schools.

If using the School Preferences tab, any System Preferences that show as greyed out are those that correspond to the Default Preference set. Uncheck the Default value in order to

make changes to these.

**Please Note that all System Preferences are Year-Specific and that they can be rolled from Year to Year.**

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esAccessing and Configuring System Preferences

In addition to the configuration of the School/Default School Preferences, a series of Default User Preferences can also be configured. These will manage the appearance of the

interface for all users, and can be overridden for individual users with the appropriate permissions.

• The Display Options Tab configures a de facto layout, color scheme and general display format for all users.

• The Student Listing Tab allows for designation as to how students should be sorted in lists, and which Demographic tab will serve as the default information tab when the student record is accessed. Additionally, it allows customization related to student searches and what displays in student lists.

• The Columns in Student Lists Tab allows designation of items that should appear by default in lists of students that are generated.

• The Gradebook Configuration tab allows for the school or district to mandate certain gradebook formats, and allows gives the ability to allow/disallow teachers from using certain items within Gradebook Configuration.

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esAttendance-Related Preferences

The method(s) by which attendance is calculated and viewed depends almost entirely on the configuration of attendance-related System Preferences.

The amount of time teachers have to view or edit previous days attendance from the Take Attendance screen can be configured using the drop-downs in System

Preferences.

For Florida: The number of minutes that a student needs to attend to be considered ‘Present’ for the day is configured here as well. This value typically corresponds to the

Minutes values on the Period setup screen.

In Texas, Daily Attendance is related to the FTE period that is used during the school day. This period can be specified per school/district expectations. For schools on non-traditional scheduling formats, select Varies By Day and then

specify the proper period on the calendar. Please note that in 7.X a new feature will allow the FTE period to be assigned on the Student Record and not the

Calendar.

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esAttendance-Related Preferences

The method(s) by which attendance is calculated and viewed depends almost entirely on the configuration of attendance-related System Preferences.

If teachers should not be allowed to edit attendance values after pressing Save, deselect the associated box.

If ‘Daily Tardy’ should be used as a daily code, select the appropriate check box. This will track students that show up to school late (and will

still be calculated as a present value for daily attendance.

Similarly, for PostSecondary schools, teachers may enter attendance using hours, and if students leave and then try to rejoin certain PostSecondary

courses, the system can be configured to populate an error.

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esDiscipline-Related Preferences

The system can also be configured in order to reflect how the school/district wants teachers to be able to view student discipline

information.

The system can be configured in order to allow teachers to view referrals that were entered by any user at the school, or only those that have been entered by that

individual teacher.

Selecting “All referrals entered by any user” may allow teachers to be better prepared to deal with the challenges that some students may present in the classroom.

This preference enables the district or school to best determine the access provided to it’s teachers.

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esGrading, Report Card and Exam Options

In addition to attendance values, the System Preferences allow for the configuration of a series of options related to Grades, Report Cards and Exams

Decide how Posted Grades at the end of the Marking Period will be shown, either as Letters, Percentages or Both

The type(s) of exams that will be used throughout the school year can also be configured. Select the appropriate values for the school. Note that as these values change, Grade Posting Schemes will need to be updated as well to average grades

properly.

A School on a ‘traditional’ schedule would typically utilize both Semester and Full Year Exams (Semester for normal courses and Full Year for EOC). A school that

meets in something like a 4x4 Block may use Quarter and Semester Exams to reflect the increased length of the classes throughout the school day.

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esGrading, Report Card and Exam Options

The following System Preferences allow for the configuration of a series of options related to Grades, Report Cards and Exams

Progress Periods may be used to calculate Quarter Grades, this allows certain schools, (such as those that run regular progress reporting periods

during a marking period) to have each of the progress periods weight together in order to determine the quarter grade for the student.

Note that if this Preference is enabled, the way that the Progress Periods weight together will need to be specified in Grade Posting Averaging.

Teachers can also be permitted to create their own grading scales using the ‘Allow Teachers to Override Grading Scale Score Breakoffs. If selected, this will allow teachers to create custom grading scales for their sections. Note that the default scale will still apply unless the teacher overrides it.

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esGrading, Report Card and Exam Options

The Comments that should be used on Report Cards can also be designated within System Prefs. Comments can be entered from the Teacher Portal > Grades > Report Card Comments OR when posting final grades.

If short comments should be used, the designated comments can be configured in the Grades Menu under Grading Scales and Comments.

If Long Comment options are being used, teachers will have the ability to add Comments per Course and/or Student. Long Comments per Student will complied in a single table on the report card containing the comments entered by all teachers for that student.

Teachers can also be forced to comment if they change the Posted Grade to a value other than that in their Gradebook.

When a Marking Period ends and the Posting Window closes, teachers are automatically locked out of their gradebook unless the SysPref to allow them to modify after that window is selected. This would allow teachers to maintain the gradebook for any assignments submitted after posting has ended, but does not affect posted grades.

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esCredits, Class Rank, GPA, and Honor Roll

The System can be configured to handle GPA, Class Rank and Honor Roll in a variety of ways depending on configuration choices that are made in this section. The Honor

Roll Report, Course History Screen and the Parent Portal may all be affected based upon these choices.

Select the appropriate options pertaining to how the system should handle GPA and Class Rank. If ‘Calculate GPA Automatically’ is selected, then each time a grade that

affects GPA is added to the student’s record, the GPA will update accordingly.

Specify the number of credits that should be applied to Courses by default. If the Course Catalog credit values should take precedence, select the check box in order

to designate those as ‘more important’

Even if GPA is set to Auto-Calculate, the system will not adjust Class Rank in real time but will wait until it is manually recalculated.

If a Weighted GPA is used, then the system will display two separate GPA values on the student’s Course History screen. One corresponding to the non-weighted value

and the other showing the weights.

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esCredits, Class Rank, GPA, and Honor Roll

The System can be configured to handle GPA, Class Rank and Honor Roll in a variety of ways depending on configuration choices that are made in this section. The Honor

Roll Report, Course History Screen and the Parent Portal may all be affected based upon these choices.

Selecting the Display Communication Options box allows schools to publish Progress Reports and Report Cards to the Parent Portal if desired.

When this option is enabled, a option will display form the Report Cards to publish the report card to the Parent/Student Portals

Report cards are published to the Parent and Student Portals as a link to a PDF which can be used instead of or in addition to a printed report card.

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esCredits, Class Rank, GPA, and Honor Roll

The System can be configured to handle GPA, Class Rank and Honor Roll in a variety of ways depending on configuration choices that are made in this section. The Honor

Roll Report, Course History Screen and the Parent Portal may all be affected based upon these choices.

Round GPA to X Decimal Points is especially useful if there is a tie for Class Rank. The number of decimal points can be increased to determine a more accurate Class Rank.

Honor Roll GPA can also be specified. In addition to a minimum GPA for Honor Roll, each letter grade allowed in order to obtain honor roll can be allocated. If the

Minimum GPA field is left blank Honor Roll will be based only on the number of letter grades allowed. The Letter Grade values shown may change depending upon

the various letter grades at each school.

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esCourse Catalog Configuration

If the Course Catalog is enabled, it will be considered the most important information for the sake of building Courses and Sections at Schools across the

district. With that in mind, the Course Catalog should be configured in line with that expectation.

Keep in Mind when Using the Course Catalog:• Most options within the Course Catalog cannot be overwritten in Courses and Sections by

school personnel, but items such as Graduation Subjects and Grading Scales may still be overwritten, as they are different from school to school

• If the Course Catalog is selected in System Preferences but is not actually loaded, then the users will be unable to add courses (and sections) as they will not be able to validate against the catalog.

• If the district mandates the use of 8 and 9 digit course numbers (in Florida), then each of the mandated course numbers should be added to the Course Catalog.

Select whether or not the school/district will be using the Course Catalog. If so, values configures in the Course Catalog cannot be overridden at the school level.

Additionally, a Default Course History Term can be specified. For schools that do not report grades to Course History (i.e. Elementary Schools), this should be set to NONE.

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esScheduling and Schedule Configuration

Each school’s schedule is inherently unique. Focus can be configured in order to utilize a number of different scheduling methods based upon the System

Preferences that are specified.

If the School has courses that span multiple periods, Ending Periods may be enabled in order to designate period spans when building the schedule.

NOTE: When a section spans more than one period, attendance is only entered for the beginning period. The student will earn the total number of minutes present for both periods. For example,

if Period 01 and Period 02 both have a Length (minutes) of 60 in Periods setup. The student is “Present” for 120 minutes if marked present in Period 01.

Rotation Days and their labels can also be configured within the System Preferences for schools that utilize them. Select from options up to a 14 day rotation, and the select whether rotations should appear on

schedules and if they should appear as letters or as numbers.

When Rotation Days are enabled, there are three other areas of setup where the days must be specified for attendance to be taken and calculated accurately.

• Setup > Calendars • Setup > Periods• Scheduling > Courses & Sections, Setting the Rotation Days on the section will populate

the Rotation Days field on the students’ schedules as well.

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esScheduling and Schedule Configuration

Each school’s schedule is inherently unique. Focus can be configured in order to utilize a number of different scheduling methods based upon the System

Preferences that are specified.

It is important that the period for each rotation day be set on the section level. Each Rotation Day must have Length (minutes) specified in the Periods setup for each period that it meets.

If Rotation Days are being used and classes can appear on multiple Rotation Days, use the check box to allow classes to appear on multiple periods dependent upon rotation days.

This may take place in a modified block where periods 1-5 meet one day, and periods 6-10 meet the second, but some of those classes may meet on both days in order to compress the time for completion or add lab periods.

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esSchedules, Requests and Teacher Certification

Under certain circumstances, students (especially in Adult Education) are sometimes permitted to enroll themselves in classes. Select the System Preference if this is the case.

When this preference is enabled, an additional field will display on the course level:

Similar to the previous preference, there are a number of settings that must be configured in addition to this System Preference to allow students to enter their own schedule requests. The “Hide Schedules from students and parents” must be unchecked and students need to have permissions to Class Requests. Courses must be flagged to “Allow Students to Request this Course.”

Student request course options are going to be limited by their Progression Plan Program. In 7.0, an option will be available on the Student Request screen to “Lock Requests for Students.” When that option is checked, students will be unable to edit their course requests.

Students can also be permitted to author Schedule Requests in order to help prepare for the upcoming year. Select the System Preference to allow students to do this via the student portal.

There are some areas of set up that must be configured before students will be allowed to register. In addition to the setting on the section level, Course Registration Begins and Ends dates must be entered in the Marking Periods setup.

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esSchedules, Requests and Teacher Certification

If, during the spring or summer, school administration is working to configure teacher and student schedules, they may opt to hide those schedules. Select the appropriate checkboxes in order to ensure that students, teachers and/or parents cannot see the schedules. Please note that this would be set in the upcoming school year, as the preferences are year-specific.

The preference to hide schedules from students and parents will remove the schedule list from Featured Programs and the Class Schedule link from the My Information menu on the Parent and Student Portals.

When schedules are hidden from teachers, the section pull down menu is removed and there are a number of functions that become un-usable. When trying to access a function that requires the schedule to be viewed, an error message will display:

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esSchedules, Requests and Teacher Certification

In addition, if the “Automatically determine Highly Qualified status for class sections” preference is enabled, in the Master Schedule Builder – Courses tab, Focus will look at the Highly Qualified field on set on the section and At the Teacher Certification fields to determine automatically if that teacher has a “highly qualified status,” represented by a green check or red X in the Certified column

If the Focus Teacher Certification tracking system is being used, the old certification codes from the state can be converted to the new values automatically and can be displayed in the Course Catalog via the use of these system preferences.

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esAddress and Contact Information Preferences

If the district encompasses a specific City, State, Zip Code or Area code, designate the

If the district would like to utilize address validation, then the

Address Catalog should be turned on. Focus will then use the catalog in order to check that student addresses are valid and that the student is enrolled in the proper school zone based upon the address. If the address catalog were turned on, required, but not loaded, no new students could be added to the district because there would be no addresses that could be used for validation.

proper value here in order to have it pre-populate in the student address fields

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esAddress and Contact Information Preferences

The Address Catalog can also be used in conjunction with new student enrollment in order to require an address (that can then be validated) when the student goes to enroll. If an address should be required for enrollment, designate that option by selecting the appropriate checkbox.

If siblings should be linked to one another via common addresses in the system, then select the box to allow that linking to take place.

• If separate Bus or Mailing addresses need to be used within the school or district, select the boxes in order to allow information to be added to those additional addresses.

• Should additional Contacts need to be defined for students, select the box in order to define the other contact types that should have information.

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esInformation and Change Request System

Built into Focus is a system that allows parents or guardians to update their own information, as well as that of their children. There are a number of

choices related to the configuration of this system.

• To Enable the Change Request System, select the checkbox. Once selected, the options will show in the Students Menu in the interface for additional configuration

• The district can also opt to have parents sign a disclaimer of their choosing before using the system• In certain cases (such as Adult Education) students may be given the rights to verify and change

their own information. Otherwise, this preference should remain deselected.• Parents can also be required to verify this information. If this is the case, then a timeline can also

be specified to mandate how often parents need to update their information.

Note: After changing any System Preferences, ensure that Save is pressed in order to save the changes that were made.

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esComing Changes for System Preferences

Starting in version 7.0, the appearance of the System Preferences will be changing, and the layout will be sub-divided into a tabbed

interface for ease of navigation.

Preferences related to General options, Grading, Attendance, Enrollment, Scheduling and Localization will each receive their own tabs, and the

preferences mentioned previously will be sorted into those categories.

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esComing Changes for System Preferences

Additionally, new Preferences will make their debut in 7.0:

Under the Grading menu tab, users will have the ability to set a maximum and minimum posted percent grade.

When posting final quarter grades,if a percent is entered (or populated from the “Use Gradebook Grades” option) that is above the Max or below the Minimum, it will automatically adjust to the value specified in the System Preference.

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esComing Changes for System Preferences

Additionally, new Preferences will make their debut in 7.0:

Teacher Comments On Take Attendance

Similar to the attendance comments that can be added to a students’ daily attendance record by Administrators on Attendance Administration and the Absence Summary, this preference will allow teachers to enter comments when taking attendance. These comments are entered on the Period attendance record (and are stored in the attendance_period table), rather than the daily option available to only administrators.

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esQuestions?

Mike MorrisSoftware Trainer – Focus School Software

mikem@focusschoolsoftware.comPhone: (727).388.9973

www.focusschoolsoftware.com

Please be sure to complete the comment card for this session and enjoy the rest of the Users’ Conference!