Administrative

Is it possible to change marking period/quarter dates after the school year is created?

Yes, marking period or quarter dates can be changed at any time by going to Administration | School Years. Click the school calendar icon (Edit School Days). Find the day(s) that needs to be edited and click on the date. There is a drop down menu to choose which quarter the day should be. Also, choose whether the day is marked as an in session 'school day' or 'half day'.

How do I delete or add school days to my School Calendar?

In Administrative| Administration| School Year, click on the calendar icon to left of the current year. Go to the specific month, then click on the grey day number, check or uncheck the School Day box, and Update.

By going to Administrative| Back Office Mgr| Families| All and clicking on List All, you will see a list of all the families entered into the Back Office Mgr. Current families will be highlighted in pink.

Change an Individual Family Status

You can make an individual family current by clicking on the blue family code link, then clicking on the blue Current button at the top right of their profile page. You can also make a family non-current by clicking on the non-current button. Whichever is highlighted pink is the status for the family.

Change a Group of Families' Status

You can make a group of families current by using the Back Office Mgr| Reports| Family Status report. Again, all families that are already current will be highlighted in pink. You change the current status for families by checking the box to the left of their names and clicking the 'Submit' button at the top right of the page.

Note: Student status may be changed the same way.

Go to an individual student in Back Office Mgr| Students| All| List All view, and click on the blue 'Current' button on the student profile page

Go to Back Office Mgr| Reports| Student Status report and check those students you want to make current.

Future Families

Some schools want to give incoming families the ability to log in to the Sycamore site before they are actually enrolled. You can do this by making the family current while keeping the student(s) non-current. Then you can enable the family's login (see the manual Administrative - Back Office: Inviting Families to Log In).

Sycamore does not have built-in fields for Social Security Numbers for a reason and encourages the schools not to enter them. We are a secure system, but we still need to let you know as a customer to enter them at your own risk. Sycamore's security is dependent on how secure you make it - meaning if passwords are written down and left in unsecured locations things like social security numbers are at risk within your site. We encourage you to remind your staff to keep their passwords secure and use strong passwords.

If you do want to enter any statistic that we do not support, you can do so by adding Student (or Family) statistics. Go to Back Office Mgr | Students | Additional Fields, and click New Field. This additional field will then be found under the student's general profile where you can specify the individual record for the student, and can be printed using the Dynamic Student Report.

What do I do if a parent changes his/ her last name?

In addtion to changing the name on the family profile| General tab and the Family Contact names, you may want to change the Family Code to agree with the new name. You can edit the 3 alpha portion of the family code in the family profile itself. Then you would want set the students to agree: open student profile, and click on the red arrow to the right of the student code.

You will also want to change the name on the family profile| Login tab.

Are students' documents all viewable by parents?

The documents parents are allowed to see in their student's profile are now configurable based on the school's preferences. Transcripts, Report Cards, Attendance, Discipline, Medical and Service Records can all be turned on or off for parents to review when they login to Sycamore Education. Find it: Site Admin/ Configuration/ Student Documents (Check-mark represents documents viewable by parents.)

What do I need to do when a student leaves mid year?

There are a few items you should consider BEFORE making a student and/or family (and thus all the students from the family) non-current:

1. Make sure teachers have posted grades for the student up to the day they were in school.

2. Grade Mgr| Report Cards, select the appropriate format, check Post to Student Documents, select the student and Generate

3. Run Grade Mgr| Reports| 1: Grade Processing for this specific student. Then, an Academic Record (for 8th grade or younger) or a Transcript (High School) can be run for the student, even after he/she is made non-current.

4. Possibly create a student Additional Field under Back Office | Students | Additional Field for when students leave the school and put the date they left in that Additional Field.

5. Investigate any unmet financial obligations. Some reports may not show non-current families.

6. You could run year-end that may be relevant (i.e. medical, service logs, etc.) and process them.

7. You can archive the student's documents in the student profile | Documents tab. You don't actually have to remove the documents unless the student is in your highest grade level.

8. Make the family and/or student non-current (this will take them out of the classroom), and if the family has no other students in your system, you would want to make them non-current also.

9. An Attendance PDF will post to the student profile even if the student was marked non-current during the current school year. They will also be included in the other Year End Closeout Attendance archived reports.

Where all do I need to make name and address changes for a family?

1. On the General tab of the family profile, change their name, formal name and address changes as needed.

2. On the Contacts tab of the family profile, you will need to change the contact information. By each contact name is a red arrow. By clicking on it you can copy the family information to the contact information.

3. On the Login tab of the family profile, make any necessary changes to the Firstname and Lastname and Update.

If student information has also changed, it will need to be done in the student's profile.

Why can't my parents login to their Sycamore Accounts?

In order for parents to be able to login to their Sycamore Account, they first have to be made current, and then their accounts need to be enabled.

Making parents current:

There are 2 ways to make a family current. Individually, go to the family profile in Back Office Mgr. On the first tab there are 2 buttons at top left: Current and Non-current. Click on the Current button (it will show as pink if it is selected).

To make a group of parents current, use the Back Office Mgr| Reports| Family Status active report. Check the families that you want to make current and hit the Submit button (Current families will show as pink highlighted).

Enabling Parent Accounts:

There are 2 ways to enable a family's account. Indvidually, go to the family account in Back Office Mgr| to the login tab. For a new family, all fields will be blank and there will be a blue Enable Login button. Click this button and the fields will inhabit with a Username, and a randomly created password (you will see this as string of asterices). You may invite the family to login on this page by clicking the blue Send Invitation Button.

To enable a group of families, go to Back Office Mgr| Reports| Family Account Enabler. This report will list all the Current families, and you can check the boxes to left of each name and click the blue Enable button at top right. Using the Back Office Mgr| Reports| Family Login/ Password, you can print out all your families login information (school id, username and password) and pass these out to your families, or you can email the information. Check all the families you want to include, and click the blue Print button or Email button at top right.

Do NOT enable an individual parent contact's login (from the family profile| Contacts| select contact to get to contact profile| Login tab); that may cause problems with their family login. If you have accidentally enabled a parent contact login, go to the family profile| Contacts tab| click on the parent name link| go to Login tab and Delete the login on that page.

Parents may also have trouble logging in if they do not use the exact password which is case sensitive. They need to be careful with letters and numbers that appear similiar. If they are copying and pasting fields from their email, they need to be careful they are not including an extra blank space.

After creating a Multiple Choice additional field, click on the blue Multiple Choice link in the Statistics list in Back Office Mgr| Families/ Students| Additional FIelds and add choices, filling out these required fields (often the issue is a result of not setting the Value field):

• Sequence - the order of this option

• Value - the value that choice will be saved as (and displayed in Dynamic reporting), up to 15 characters. NOTE: The Value text can NOT have spaces; use dashes instead

• Label - the name this option will display in drop down menu, up to 48 characters.

A common issue is using Value multiple choice options that include a space; that space will prevent any statistics getting saved with that entry. Should that be your issue, you will need to remove the choice option (use the red X), then re-create it; using a dash or underscore in place of the space if you desire.

Examples of multiple choice fields:

1. Yes/ No questions - Additional Field "Are your parents married?"; value "Yes"/ label "Yes; 2nd value "No"/ label "No"

2. Multiple options - Additional Field "Mode of getting to school?"; 1st value "Bus"/ label "School Bus"; 2nd value "Drive"/ label "Driven by Parents"; 3rd value "Self"/ label "Walk, drive or bike by self"

When doing multiple choice additional field, when you put in a value, that is what the system uses to display the label you want. The label is what people see. The value is what the coding requires for functioning.

How do we update the students' homeroom teacher?

There is a Report under Administrative | Back Office | Reports: Student Homeroom Report. This will show you Current and Proposed; the Proposed field is pulling the teacher's name from the HR class each student is currently assigned to. Hit update and the HR teacher is set and updated in the student's profile.

1. Make sure all the classes that will take the report card attendance are set to be HR classes

2. Enter students into the HR classes

3. Run Back Office| Reports| Student Homeroom - the Proposed teacher will be the primary teacher from the HR class the student is entered in.

How do I set up parent volunteers who will be helping with our school site?

All parents who help/ work at your school will need to have two separate logins. You should not enable the individual parent login under Back Office Mgr | Families| family profile| Contacts, on the Login tab of the contact profile. This will interfere with family login. Instead you will need to create a New Employee in Human Resources| Employees. Again, the parent will have two separate logins: one to access information about their students in their Family login, and one to do their volunteer tasks with the employee login.

You may set your new parent volunteer "employee" as a level = Volunteer. With that level, if the parent volunteer is attached to a class, they would have limited functionality and would not be able to see the Grade Book and Admin on the class site menu.

How do I transfer a student to a new class section? How do I move grades?

If you need to transfer a student into a new class section, you will want to move the student and the grades. There is no automatic way to transfer the grades, but here are some steps you will use:

1. Move Student - Add the student to the new class and remove them from the old one. See Adding Students to Classes.

2. Copy Assignment Grades - If you have the same assignments in both classes, you will manually copy the grades for the old to the new class. In the old class site| Grade Book| Grade Overview| Non-Active tab, you wil see the assignment grades. Open the new class site| Grade Book| Grade Overview in a new tab or window. Then you can enter the data by double clicking on the first cell, entering the data, and tabbing to the right to enter for all cells. Then Update the window.

3. Switch Posted Grades - In the new class, go to Grade Book| Grade Summary and Post Grades. In the old class go to Grade Book| Grade Posting| Non-active tab, and use the red trashcan to clear that posted grade.

If you are making the switch at the beginning of a new marking period, you may only need to do steps 1 and 3 and can skip step 2. Then previous marking period assignment grades can stay with the original class. For #3, in the new class you will go to Grade Book| Grade Posting, and manually enter the posted grade in the Transcript, Posted and Letter fields; then they can be deleted from the previous classs.

If you are trying to move a student to a different class mid marking period that is not just a different section (it has different assignments in each), here is an FAQ that may be helpful:

http://se.sycamoresupport.com/transfer-student-to-different-class

How do I transfer grades when moving a student to a different class (with different assignments) mid marking period?

If you switch a student to a different class between marking periods, and the two classes do not have the same assignments (e.g. moved student from Reading 4 to Reading 5), you will need to decide how to bring over the previous average so it gets pulled into the new class. There is no fluid way to do this, since the two classes may have different categories, a different number of assignments given and even a different grading structure (e.g. points vs percentage).

The best practice is transfer a student after the marking period is complete, but if that is not feasible, here are some suggestions:

1. Create a temporary class for that student for the current marking period, and add the previous class' assignments and the new classes assignments. Then once the marking period is complete, you can tranfer that posted grade over to the new classses.

2. If both classes use the Point system to calculate grades, here is a process to pull in the previous average so it is fair to both the new and current students.

   1. Add the student to new class and remove them from old class.

   2. Excuse them from all previous assignments in the new class. You can use the Grade Overview for this process, entering an E in each cell for the new student.

   3. In the new class, create a new assignment for this student for each category (assuming the categories and their weights are the same for both classes), and make possible points be the total points for all previous assignments in that category that the student has missed. For example, if there were 9 quizzes worth 100 each, create one "Past Quizzes" assignment for the student worth 900 points.

   4. Once you click Add, on the Students tab just select this single student. This assignment will then not affect the other students' grades.

   5. Assign the grade the points that would make the same percentage of that category student had earned from the previous class. For example, if the student had 80% for quizzes in the old class, then for the Past Quizzes assignment, give him 'score' of 900 x 80%, or 720 points, so that his average will still be 80%.

   6. Post this grade in new class, and delete the old class grade on the student profile| Grades tab.

If you have are transferring a student to a different section of the same class that has the same assignments, another option is:

http://se.sycamoresupport.com/move-or-transfer-student-to-a-different-section

If you have a new student transfer in mid marking period:

1. Make student and family current

2. In student profile| School Years| click on current year and make sure Entry Date is correct

3. Add student to classes in student profile| Schedule| Manage Classes

4. In each class, go to Grade Book| Grade Overview, put Caps Lock on, double click on first cell for first assignment, and enter E and tab across entering E's for each missed assignment. This functions like a spreadsheet. Then update the Grade Overview page at top right. Excusing assignments will ensure a 0/F does not get posted for the student.

here are a couple of ways to get a report that shows total number of students who enroll in an academic school year:

1. In Back Office| Students| Current, you can get totals by school year by changing that in the menu.

2. Back Office| Reports| Dynamic Student report, run with blank school year, format = CSV then the fields you will need. You can then sort by school year and get totals for each

How you record grades is a matter of school policy, and may differ on grade level of the student. If you want to incorporate previous school grades into your report cards, and if the student is taking the same subjects, you can simply post previous quarter grades in the class site | Grade Book | Grade Postings for the classes the student is in.

If the student is in high school and you want to record grades on the student's transcript, then you can enter the grades in the student profile | Grades tab | Transcript button | select grade level.

School policy differs on awarding weight to transfer grades (if they will or will not affect the GPA).

Why aren't the absences and tardies showing up on the home page?

Only classroom attendance from classes that are marked 'Home Room' will be displayed on the Home Page. Check your classes and make sure the 'Homeroom' check box is checked.

Why does the student profile attendance differ from their grade card attendance?

There are several possible reasons why these may be different. One of the main reasons is when making a change to an attendance record a data entry error was made. Since Sycamore Education takes the attendance from the home room and uses that for the attendance on the report card it is critical to have this correct. One helpful report is Attendance| Reports| Attendance Posting that will display any scheduled school days where a class has not taken attendance within specified date range.

If you believe the grade card attendance to be incorrect, you can follow the following steps to correct it:

1. Go to the student's profile (under Back Office Mgr), and click on the attendance tab.

2. Click on the Edit button for the class.

3. Depending on the quarter you are checking, click on the blue Q1, Q2, Q3, or Q4.

4. Notice the headings across the top. HR stands for Homeroom. For the grade cards to show the correct attendance, there needs to be a check next any record that's associated to the home room.

5. If you need to correct an attendance record for a particular date, click on the blue date link.

6. Click on the Homeroom check box and Update.

How do I add a class or multiple classes to a teacher?

• In the class profile| Primary Teacher field, adding a teacher's name to the class will put the class on that teacher's class list.

• Go to class site | Administration | Teachers and click the Manage Teachers button.

• To add multiple classes to a teacher, go to Human Resources | Employee profile| Classes tab and click the Add button.

As stated earlier, it is never recommended to delete an employee (unless one was created that will never be used). For former employees, you simply want to change the status from current to previous. You will also want to change Login to No Login, or else the employee will still be able to access your school's Sycamore site.

After you have changed an employee to previous with no login, you will find them in the Previous tab (click All to see all previous employees). There will be a no face icon to the left of the blue name link.

You will also want to remove the employees from the categories, departments and classes they were assigned to.