Summer School Overview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Overview
• Major Points
• Caveats
• Summer School and Summer Rollover
• Summer School FAQ

Overview

Summer schools are provided in such a way that almost all Genesis subsystems are available for use.

There are certain constraints, however:

1. One or more special “summer schools” must be created: you cannot ‘re-use’ a regular school as a summer school.
2. Summer school students are temporarily “assigned” to a summer school during the summer school session: they will temporarily not appear in their regular school.
3. You cannot run most state reports while a student is in summer school.  NJ-Smart can be run, however.

Major Points

1. Summer school is a “this year” function: it occurs as an extension of the just-ended school year.
2. One or more “summer schools” can be defined. These must be configured as separate schools. A ‘regular’ school cannot be re-used as a summer school.
3. A significant amount of setup must be done for each summer school. Many of these things will need to be done only once. In future years, the information will already be in place. 
   • Valid Grade Levels must be selected
   • A Schedule Cycle must be defined
   • Marking Period MP1 and, potentially, IR1 must be created
   • Attendance cycles must be created for MP1, Q1 and, potentially, IR1
   • Print periods must be defined for the school
   • Teachers need to be assigned to the school
   • Rooms need to be created for the school
   • Course codes must be created
   • Course sections must be created
   • Grading must be set up if you want to use Genesis to grade students 
     • Grading Collections must be setup (MP1, FG and, optionally, IR1)
     • Grading Comments must be setup if they are to be collected
     • A report card must be created
     • Valid grades must be defined
4. Students must flagged to indicate they will attend summer school. This is done via the Demographics>Categories screen on each student.   You can also use the Mass Change feature to set this flag to a list of students.
5. Once the regular school year has ended, students must be “assigned” to the summer school they will attend for summer session. This “assignment” is temporary and does not affect any state (i.e. NJ Smart related) related fields, or any scheduling related fields. It does change the students’ “Current School Code”.
6. “Out of District” students – students who do not live in the district and do not attend district schools during the regular school year can be included in the summer school by doing the following: 
   • Registering these students directly into the Summer School (with a regular “New Student” registration)
   • Setting their “Summer School” status to “Out of District”.
7. For the duration of Summer Session students are ‘assigned’ to their summer school. They will NOT appear to be in their regular school during that time: they will not show up in searches. They will NOT be picked up by dynamic student lists.
8. At the close of the summer session students will be ‘re-assigned’ back into their regular schools. “Out of District” students, who were registered only so that they could attend summer school, will be ignored: they will not show up in any regular school nor appear in any state report.
9. The Master Class Schedule is used to drive all Summer School capabilities, including Gradebook, Grading (optional), and Class Attendance. You must create a schedule: 
   • Create a Curriculum File entry for each course or subject offered in summer school.
   • Create a “course sections” with subsections to provide scheduling information
10. It will be necessary to create student lists to mass add students in the appropriate course sections. “Course requests” and mass scheduling are not available (these are “next year” functions).
11. Daily Attendance is not available for Summer School. Class Attendance is automatically available as long as you have defined Class Attendance codes for the school district (all attendance codes are district wide). If no Class Attendance codes had previously been created, it will be necessary to create some to take Class Attendance during summer session.
12. Grading is optional for summer. If you wish to grade students via Genesis, the Grading module must be setup. This includes: Grading policies (e.g. ‘alpha’ vs. ‘numeric’), grades (e.g. ‘A’, ‘B’, …), Grade Collections (MP1, FG, IR1), Grading Comments and Report Cards.
    
    

Caveats

The scheme used for Summer School provides you with the ability to use almost all Genesis modules for the summer schools.

However, there are several things that bear repeating that you must be aware of:

1. Students’ “Current School Code” is set to their Summer School NOT their regular school during summer session.
2. Students will NOT show up on searches of their regular school during summer session: 
   • Searches in the regular school during summer session will NOT locate these students
   • Guidance counselors (and others) must be trained to search the summer school.
     
     

Summer School and Summer Rollover

A few years ago, we made some small changes that now allow districts to rollover their database prior to the end of Summer School, if you are interested.

A big caveat to doing this is that Summer school must still be run in the current school year.

For clarity, in the example/timeline below, 21-22 is the current school year, and 22-23 is the next school year, where you will be right after you finish performing the summer rollover with Genesis.

• Once Summer school is in session, you must continue to maintain grades and Summer schedules within the 21-22 school year.
• After the Summer Rollover is completed and you have switched to 22-23 school year, all staff must flip back a year (to 21-22) and work in the Summer school within the 21-22 school year.
• So for example, taking attendance, tracking gradebook grades and assignments grades, and posting grades to the report card must all be done within 21-22.
• This would also include moving the students back to their original school once the Summer session is over.
  
  

This is an example of a timeline of events:

1. The New Summer School is Created in Your System 
   1. Summer school is created in Setup>Schools
   2. School is flagged as "Summer School" and has grade levels assigned
   3. Add start and end dates, calendar, and semesters to the Summer School
   4. Create a list of Courses and Master Schedule
   5. Setup grading (Typically, one MP and an FG)
   6. Install a report card
2. Designate Students Who Will Be Moved to the Summer School 
   1. Mark all students with the Summer School option on the Categories tab (Student Data>Modify Student>Demographics>Categories.)
   2. This option has either "In District" for your current students, or "Out of District" if they do not attend your school during the regular school year.
   3. Fill in "School Before Summer School"
   4. Students who do not attend the district can be registered directly into the Summer School. They will also need the above fields set for themselves.
   5. Students can be enrolled into Summer school classes at this point. The courses will show in blue on their Current Year Schedule screens.
3. Move the Students into Summer School 
   1. Students are physically moved to the Summer School via the Registration>Summer School screen.
   2. Once all students are placed, they now appear in the student search as if they were enrolled in the Summer school. They will appear in their teachers' Gradebooks when they navigate to Gradebook module within the Summer School. 
   3. You may now start recording grades, attendance etc.
      
      

Summer Rollover Can Now Happen After This Point.

  4. Working in the Summer School AFTER THE ROLLOVER 

1. Administrators must give staff access to editing data in the previous school year
2. Gradebook must be set to enabled in the previous school year (Gradebook>School Setup>Maintenance>Gradebook Status in 2021-22.)
3. Gradebook must have "Allow Marking Period and Final grades to be changed for the previous school year (2018-19)" via Gradebook>School Setup>Maintenance>Gradebook Maintenance (2022-23.)
4. Students are then released back into their original in-district school via the Registration>Summer Rollover screen. This final step is also done within the previous (2021-22) school year.
   
   

Summer School FAQ

Q: What is the actual transfer to Summer School?

The move to the Summer school is not like a traditional 'Transfer in District' that would normally get logged as a registration transaction. It's more of a temporary change in the student's Current School. Your students that are going to be attending a Summer School will end up having additional classes on their Current Year Schedule screen.

You mark all students with the Summer School option on the Categories tab on the Student Data>Modify Student>Demographics>Categories screen.

Q: Do students' "next year" schedules get affected/removed when they are moved to the Summer School?

No.  Their schedules for next year are independent of the Summer School and will not be affected by the students being placed into a Summer School.

Q: When can I move my students to the summer school?

Genesis will not let you move students into your Summer School until the day after your District End Date.  You will need to move the students on the first day after that District End Date.

Q: Will their report cards and transcripts be affected by the move?

After students are moved, you can generate report cards in their former school, and the students in Summer school currently will still generate a report card along with the others. It will also remain viewable on the parent portal.

Transcripts will not be an issue either. Just make sure you set the "Transcript School" field to the high school, when you are creating the Summer school on the Setup>Schools screen.

Q: Can I still set up credit loss for students missing a set amount of days while placed in Summer School?

Yes. If you would like this to be automatic, credit loss rules can be setup for the Summer School, specifically. These are added on the Grading>Setup>Att.Credit Loss screen.

Q: If we utilize the Summer School feature within Genesis, do we need to wait for it to conclude before performing the Summer Rollover?

No, you do not. This logic was modified a few years back. You may review the "Summer School and Summer Rollover" section above for more info.

A big caveat to doing this is that Summer school must still be run in the current school year. So, you can perform the rollover before Summer School concludes - but post-rollover, your users will just need to switch the School Year field up top to the previous school year to continue working with it etc.