1. Preliminary Considerations
Before you begin configuring course selections, ensure that you have a clear roadmap. This foundational planning will guide all your subsequent actions.
Key Planning Steps:
- Identify Next Year's Course Offerings: Determine which core and elective courses will be available. Core courses are typically mandatory classes (e.g., English 9, World History I) that every student in a given grade level must take, while electives offer more choice.
- Determine Grade-Level Eligibility: Confirm which courses are open to which grade levels. For example, a course might be restricted solely to 11th and 12th graders.
- Pre-Loaded Courses vs. Student-Selected Courses: Decide which courses will be automatically added to student records before the selection window opens and which courses students will add themselves.
- Identify Special-Case Courses: Some courses—like Study Hall or Lunch—may not be chosen by students and should be added after they finalize their selections.
By clarifying these points upfront, you'll ensure that the settings you configure later align with your school's academic vision.
Properly advancing grade levels ensures that the system displays only appropriate courses to each student. To advance grade levels, review Advancing Student Grade.
3. Configuring Course Parameters
Key Fields to Configure (Scheduling > Courses):
- Scheduling Priority: Assign a “1” to core courses and higher numbers for electives to help organize and prioritize scheduling tasks.
- Default Section Capacity: Set a default maximum number of students for new sections.
- Student Selection Section:
- Minimum & Maximum Grade Level: Enter the numeric range of allowed grade levels. For example, 9 to 9 for a 9th-grade-only course, or 9 to 12 for a course open to all high schoolers.
- Hiding Courses: Leave min and max fields blank if you don't want a course to appear in online selections.
- Locking Pre-Loaded Selections: Assign courses to students first, then remove their grade-level eligibility so that they appear but cannot be changed.
By configuring these parameters, students see only relevant courses, and administrators maintain full control over eligibility and requirements.
4. Setting Departmental Scheduling Rules
Departments can have their own rules that shape how students pick courses within that academic area.
Accessing Department Settings (Scheduling > Departments):
- Rank Selections: Allow students to rank their choices to manage popular electives.
- Max Courses Per Student: Limit how many courses a student may select in a given department.
- Is Activity Department?: Typically set to “No” for academic departments.
These department-level settings help maintain balance and coherence in a student's course load.
Pre-loading ensures that certain mandatory courses are already on a student's schedule before they begin selecting electives.
Two Approaches:
- By Students: Select a group of students and add required courses to all of them at once by going to Scheduling > Students > Multi-action > Selections (Add).
- By Courses First: Navigate to Scheduling > Courses > Details > Selections to add students to each course as needed.
Locking pre-loaded selections (by removing their eligibility ranges) prevents changes, ensuring mandatory courses remain fixed.
6. Establishing End Dates for Selections
Two critical end dates provide a structured schedule for the selection process:
- Student Online Selection End Date: Set at the student level, it determines how long each student can make changes. Without a valid end date, students cannot select courses.
- Course Online Selection End Date: Found in Admin > Maintenance > School Info, this date closes the selection window for the entire school division.
Note: Both dates have to be open to make selections through the CMS interface.
7. Adding and Dropping Selections
Administrators can modify course selections through the administrative interface. Navigate to Scheduling > Courses/Students > Details > Selections to add and drop course selections.
To enable users to select courses through the Student, Parent, or Advisor Portal, the CMS Widget - Course Selection (Grid) must be added to the appropriate portals.