Locking report cards

Amanda Polson

Is there a way to lock report cards? I would like to make some changes to my grade plan groups and assessment settings, but if I change anything there it shows those changes on our report cards from the last two years and they won't make sense anymore. I didn't really know what I was doing when we set this up originally, am I really stuck with the complicated mess I made? ?

Michael Morrissette

Hi @Amanda Polson -

It really comes down to what kind of changes you're looking to make. Report cards and transcripts pull from prior years' grading setup. So long as you're not updating prior year's information, the report cards from prior years should be stagnant.

Without understanding the full scope of the issue, I suggest reaching out to our Support team so they can help guide you through the updates you're trying to make. We have a lot of schools that need to update their grading configurations from one year to the next, so the team is very familiar with fielding these kinds of questions.

If you want, you can also print your report cards to PDF. This will at least give you a static copy for the time being while you work through your setup.

-Mike

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

@Amanda Polson I copy/clone the RC template and modify the cloned version as needed. when it is time to release the RC to families, publish access is set only for the newest template.

Pro tip: While in draft, I append the current year (i.e., 23-24) to the RC template to distinguish it.

Amanda Polson

@Michael Morrissette Thanks! I am wanting to update our Assessment criteria, but when I make changes there, it shows on last year's reports.

Amanda Polson

@Lauren Marcus Eisenberg Thanks! So far I have made a copy of the actual report card for each new year, I was wondering if that was necessary.

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

@Amanda Polson I only make a copy if we are changing it. Otherwise, I have come to realize that it is much better to control via access!

Jo Giesecke

@Amanda Polson
We export our report cards by grade as a PDF each year for this very reason. It ensures we have a “true” copy of the report card and eliminates the stress of making necessary changes. We use the PDF copy when sending records to other schools.

Amanda Polson

@Jo Giesecke thats a really good idea. I will definitely do that just to be safe!

Jo Giesecke

@Amanda Polson
We created a folder that only our registrars can access and save them by graduation year. We download transcripts and test scores to these folders also.

Mary Stanton

@Lauren Marcus Eisenberg @Jo Giesecke

Lauren - so am I understanding correctly that you only allow parents to have access to the current year's RC? We want parents to be able to view past years report cards as well which is why I had assumed that we would create a new RC template for each year. (We have just used the K12 Report cards for the first time this year so am sure I don't understand the nuances like if I edited Assessment Skills for next year that past report cards would be changed!? Have just learned on this thread to add a new skill rather than edit an existing one!)

Jo - do you allow parents or other faculty/staff besides the registrar to view current and past report cards? If so, how do you manage that?

Katherine Nolte

@Amanda Polson I do the same as @Jo Giesecke. I download PDF's and upload them to student “Files & Forms”. I creates extra work (I download by grade them have to create separate files for each student. But it has eliminated this issue. It would be great if we could download the report cards in bulk by individual students.

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

@Mary Stanton Hmm. We do allow parents to view report cards for prior years. However, if we want to modify a report card, I clone it and modify it. If the same report card is used from year to year, yes, we use the same template. I was referring to the backend setting which publishes the report cards on a particular date. Sorry that wasn't clear,

Jo Giesecke

@Mary Stanton We do not allow parents/faculty/staff other than the registrars to view report cards. Registrars provide the report cards as needed.

We organize our report card and transcript PDF exports by graduation year and do not make separate files for each student. We Organize the PDF and Extract individual report cards as needed.

Mary Stanton

@Lauren Marcus Eisenberg Thanks for clarifying! I thought you were saying that you only allow parents to see the most recent report card and ‘turned off’ access to past report cards so was trying to understand if there was something I was missing that would change our decision of allowing parents to see older ones. It helps knowing other schools do allow this as well! Thanks again.

Mary Stanton

@Jo Giesecke Thanks for clarifying! Organizing by graduation year seems to make sense - will be looking at whether we also should store a PDF version of the report cards as a ‘back up’.

Jo Giesecke

@Mary Stanton We have found exporting PDFs to be very helpful. Sometimes it is late in the next school year, or the next, or the next when we find we have to make a change to something that will affect historical documents like report cards. Always exporting them at the end of each school year also puts all records in one easy-to-find place when records are requested.

John Ronan

@Katherine Nolte, RE bulk report cards….

you can always save a collection of student report cards to a .pdf, then use a tool [like “Autosplit Prog”] that will split that pdf into separate documents, then import those documents.

The tool is quite useful. You simply put a distinguishing field [somewhere] on the report card, then tell the tool to look for that field in that spot, and then tell the tool how to name the newly split files. We inject a field something like “RonanJohn20010305” (<last><first><dob>) and split based on that.

Mary Stanton

@Lauren Marcus Eisenberg May I have some further clarification please? We currently have one Elementary school template we used for 2023-24; now that I rolled our system the current school year is 2024-25, a student's 2023-24 report card isn't showing but rather the link to their report card in Academics is showing what will be their report card for the 2024-25 school year.

How do you use the same template year to year and keep the previous year's report card visible? I thought I understood your reference to back end visibility dates but I must be missing something. The ‘edit access’ screens for visibility for teachers/parents etc. were set for 2023-24. I currently do not have any access dates set for 2024-25 but don't understand how the template knows to still show 2023-24 and then eventually 2024-25 once grades are entered.

I can set up a new template each year if needed, but still not sure I understand how the template knows which school year to display in the report card and afraid Support wasn't any help today.

Thanks in advance for any further info!

Mary Stanton

@Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

Hi again - I think I just figured it out ? - I need to change the filters on the screen where I am viewing the report card to select what year I want to view and will need to rename my template to remove the reference to the school year. Both myself and the person who brought this to my attention both missed seeing the filter. Sorry to bother you!

Brian Gray

@Mary Stanton - you're correct. That selector for the academic year has to be set to the correct year.

That's also the case for students and parents. They need to know to select the appropriate academic year if they want to look at report cards.

Mary Stanton

@Brian Gray Thanks Brian! Once I finally saw the academic year filter in Academics I did impersonate a parent and saw they had to select the year too. I appreciate you taking the time to confirm it for me!