Close School Year Considerations

Overview

This article lists considerations to take into account prior to closing the school year as well as the results of closing the year; it can be helpful to review in conjunction with using the self-service close school year procedure.

Departmental Considerations Before Closing the School Year

Each department will have some special considerations before closing the school year in addition to the general considerations outlined in the next section.

• Academics: Report Card grades will need to be posted and locked. Roles will change upon rolling over the school year (e.g., Student to Alum). New Alumni and Parents of Alumni will lose access to the Student and Parent Portals. Next Year Schedules and Classes will become visible unless previously designated as hidden.
• Admissions: The Close School Year procedure will not affect the Active Admissions Year. More information about closing the ‘Active Admissions Year’ can be found here.
• Advancement/Development: The Close School Year procedure will not affect the Fiscal Year. Consider the ramifications of closing the school year in the context of reports based upon Person Roles and Development Roles.
• Business Office: The Close School Year procedure will not affect the Fiscal Year. Person Charge Items are often generated based upon Grade, Grade Applying For, and/or Child Number, all of which may be affected by the Close the School Year process. New Alumni Parents will no longer have access to the Parent Portal to pay Invoices.
• HR/Employment: The Close School Year Process will clear all time off balances. Before rolling over the new year, time off balances should be exported.

General Considerations Before Closing the School Year

1. Please confirm that the “Current School Year” system parameter shows the school year that has ended. For example, for the 18-19 school year, this would show “2018.” If this is not the case, please contact your Veracross Account Manager so he or she can change this before you move to step #3 below.
2. Today’s date must be AFTER the ‘ALL’ grading period’s end date.
3. All Report Card grades must be posted and locked. See the “Posting/Locking Status” report on the System Page for a list of all grades that are not posted/locked. If there are outstanding grades that you have reviewed, and you know that they don’t need to be posted/locked, please indicate that in your request to your Account Manager to close the school year. If grades haven’t been posted and locked prior to closing the school year, any grades posting required after closing the school year will need to be done manually, or may be done administratively by Veracross Engineering (which may incur extra cost).
4. If you print report cards, it’s preferable to do this prior to closing the year.
5. If you publish progress reports and/or report cards to the Parent and Student Portals, the reports are still accessible on the Portals throughout the Summer. (Note: The reports will not be available for those students whose roles are changed to Alumni or Former Student upon the Close of the School Year). 
   • New for Summer 2020: Portals Admins now have the ability to control when reports are no longer visible in the Parent and Student Portals using the "reports_school_year" portal configuration option and the corresponding "Roll Reports Year Forward/Back" action menu items. Be advised: Veracross will no longer be automatically updating this value on your behalf on August 1st.
6. Re-enrollment must have already been initialized (presumably in the January prior) so that all students have their “Year Applying For” field set to the upcoming school year, and all students have their “Grade Applying For” field incremented by one grade level. Graduating students should have their “Grade Applying For” and “Year Applying For” set to ‘None.’
7. Review all students’ “Year Applying For” and “Grade Applying For” fields to make sure they accurately represent their grade level/year applying for the upcoming fall.
8. Review student enrollment statuses. All non-graduating students must have a valid enrollment status (i.e., not N/A). New students should have an enrollment status of ‘newly enrolled’. The majority of returning students should have an enrollment status of either ‘re-enrolled’ or ‘not re-enrolling.’ This isn’t strictly necessary, but it does make things easier if re-enrollment is finished (or close to being finished) before closing the year. It’s fine if not all the students have completed re-enrollment by this time. If a student completes re-enrollment after the close school year process is run, please mark his or her re-enrollment checklist items as complete, and manually change his or her “Current Grade” to match his or her “Grade Applying For.” For schools doing Online Re/enrollment, this will continue to function after the year is closed. In the event that a student is not re-enrolling, the exit date field must be filled and the “not re-enrolling” checklist item must be checked prior to the close of the school year.
9. If you offer an optional post graduate year, you will need to manually move the “Grade Applying For” and “Year Applying For” fields forward for the students entering the post graduate year.
10. If your school rolls over HR Leave from year-to-year, the Leave Balances will need to be exported. This is important because, during the Close School Year Process, all HR Leave is reset. Read more about this workflow here.

What Happens Upon Completion of the Close School Year Process?

• Graduating students’ roles are changed from “Student” to “Alumnus/a.” Parents get the role of “Parent of Alum” and the “Parent” role is removed if they have no other students at the school. Grandparents get the role of “Grandparent of Alum” and the “Grandparent” role is removed if they have no other grandchildren at the school.

• Students who are graduating or not re-enrolling have their “Exit Date” set to the last day of school.

• Students with the enrollment status of “not re-enrolling” are changed from “Student” to “Former Student.” Parents get the role of “Parent of Former Student” and the “Parent” role is removed if they have no other students at the school. Grandparents get the role of “Grandparent of Frmr Student” and the “Grandparent” role is removed if they have no other grandchildren at the school.

• All returning students and new students have their “Current Grade” field updated based off their “Grade Applying For” field.

• The “Student Group,” “Campus,” and “Current Resident Status” fields will be updated based off the student’s “Student Group Applying For,” “Campus Applying For,” and “Resident Status Applying For” fields (as applicable).
• Teachers, Students, and Parents will have access to next year’s classes and schedules in the portal. See more about hiding student schedules and disabling parent and student accounts.
• All current-year classes are marked “Complete.”

• The “Current School Year” and “Active Schedule Year” parameters are incremented to the upcoming school year.

• Current-year class distribution lists are archived. They will still function, but will no longer display in queries.
• Current-year System Groups are deleted except for any Groups that are associated with a Group Event. Groups that have been associated with a Group Event are “Archived” so that the existing Group Event functionality is not lost.
• Prior year class groups & membership are removed (this includes prior year class groups being removed from Advanced Reports).
• Prospects whose Graduation Year has just been closed have their roles changed from “Prospect” to “Prospect – Cold”.
• Homeroom teacher and homeroom fields will be cleared on the student detail screens.

• The Grading Period Begin and End dates are moved one year forward. These new dates will almost certainly need to be corrected via the “Grading Periods” report on the System home page.

• User Account Processing: Veracross user accounts for students (and their parents) who are either graduating or not returning will be removed. See more about managing accounts for the coming school year.
• Those people designated as “Future Students” will retain this designation until the “Start School Year” procedure is run just prior to the start of school. It is often useful to be able to distinguish between returning students (those with a role of “student”) and brand new students (those with a role of “future student”). Also, if a future student decides over the summer not to enroll, it is cleaner from a data standpoint to withdraw him or her if he or she hasn’t already been changed to the “Student” role.
• User Account Processing: Parents of Future Students (that is, persons with the “Parent of Future Student” Role) will have the “Future Parent” security role added automatically in the Close School Year process. Note, this means the Future Parent security role is added, but the “Parent of Applicant” security role remains as well until the school year is closed. Also note that “Future Student” security role is not added automatically, only “Future Parent”. Read more about future parent & future student security roles & accounts by clicking here.
• *Note: Students who graduate from high school are not placed in their own household automatically. If your school would like this to be done (usually for communications and/or to separate Alumni from their Parents’ households for Development Reporting purposes), see further instructions about creating alumni households.

How to Initiate the Close School Year Process

Closing the school year is a process that you run yourself. Read about the self-service "Close School Year" procedure.

After the School Year Is Closed

1. If you publish progress reports and/or report cards to the Parent and Student Portals, the reports are still accessible on the Portals throughout the Summer. (Note: The reports will not be available for those students whose roles are changed to Alumni or Former Student upon the Close of the School Year). Veracross does not remove the reports until August 1st. Review the portal display for parents and students and disable report card links prior to the start of the school year. This can be done from the Grading Periods query on the System homepage.
2. Update grading period dates for next year from the Grading Periods query on the System homepage.
3. Determine how best to enter “No School” and “Holiday” calendar events for the coming school year. Read about the options for calendar event entry here.
4. Decide on how your school will enter classes for the coming school year. Read about the scheduling options here.
5. Instruct Teachers to copy their assignments and resources to the coming school year’s classes, if desired, using the Class Migration Assistant.
6. Begin considering rolling the portal and reports year forward. Read more about this procedure here.