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Graduation Requirements

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Use graduation sets to track student graduation progress. Graduation sets are sets of course requirements for which students must earn a specified number of credits. Monitor students' progress towards earning the credits they need to complete a predefined set of requirements for graduation from your school or entrance to a higher education institution. 

Create different requirements within a graduation set. For example, create a requirement for each major subject area, such as Science, Math, and English. Within each subject area requirement, define the number of credits students must earn to fulfill that requirement.

Add a Graduation Requirement

  1. On the start page, choose School under Setup in the main menu. 
  2. Under Scheduling, click Graduation Sets
  3. Click Edit Requirements next to the graduation set to which you want to add a requirement. 
  4. Click New
  5. Use the following table to enter information in the fields:

    Field

    Description

    Subject Area

    Enter the subject area of this graduation requirement, such as English or History.

    Requirement Name

    Enter the name of this requirement.

    Prerequisite Hours

    Enter the number of prerequisite course credit hours a student must earn to meet the graduation requirement.

    Prerequisite Courses

    Select one of the following options to identify the courses a student must complete to meet this requirement:

    • These course numbers: Enter the numbers of each course a student must complete. Separate course numbers with commas.
      Note: Most schools select this option and define specific course numbers.
    • Courses with these credit types: Identify a credit type and define the credit type for specific courses on the Course page.
      Note: Your school can create credit types to group courses together to fill a graduation requirement. Assign credit types to courses, and specify that a requirement is filled by any courses or grades of that credit type. For example, if you create an ALGEBRA credit type in this field and assign it to several courses, and then you specify that any two courses with the ALGEBRA credit type fulfill a Math requirement; students will meet the Math requirement if they take two courses with the ALGEBRA credit type.
    • Courses in this group: Use the pop-up menu to choose a course group. Students must complete the credit hours identified for the courses within the group to meet this requirement.
    • Any course at all: Indicate that the student can complete the number of credit hours by completing any course. For example, select this option for an Electives graduation requirement.

    Sort Order

    Enter a number to determine the order in which the system evaluates the student's progress in this requirement in comparison to other requirements. PowerSchool evaluates graduation requirements from the smallest sort order number to the largest.

    For example, assume you assign a Band course to two requirements: Fine Arts and Electives. Assign Fine Arts a smaller sort order number than Electives so that the system first evaluates the student's progress in the Fine Arts requirement and then his or her progress in the Electives requirement. Because Band fulfills multiple graduation requirements, it may appear more than once on the student's Graduation Progress page. For more information, see Graduation Progress.

  6. Click Submit
  7. Repeat steps 4-6 for each requirement in this graduation set.

Edit a Graduation Requirement

  1. On the start page, choose School under Setup in the main menu. 

  2. Under Scheduling, click Graduation Sets

  3. Click Edit Requirements next to the graduation set for which you want to edit a requirement. 

  4. Click the name of the requirement you want to edit. 

  5. Edit the information as needed. 

  6. Click Submit

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