Courses

On this page:

Use the Courses page to manage courses and course-related information at the district and school level.

View the Course List

This procedure may also be performed when signed in to a school by choosing School and then clicking Courses. When accessed at the school level, only courses that are available for the selected school and term appear.

1. On the start page, choose District under Setup in the main menu.
2. Under Courses, click Courses.

3. To narrow the list of courses, use the Filter. If you apply a filter, the settings are retained and available each time you navigate to this page.

   To narrow the list of courses by course status, any combination of the following course statuses by which you want to filter:

   • Active - School(s) in which courses have been made available and are currently active. This is the default setting.
   • Inactive - School(s) in which courses have been made available, but is currently inactive.
   • Unavailable - Course(s) that have not been made available.

   When in district mode, this filter is applied to the list of courses associated with the schools selected using the School(s) filter, or all schools if none are selected, and to the selected Year filter.

   When in school mode, this filter is applied to the list of courses associated only with the school selected in the School pop-up menu in the navigation toolbar, and to the selected Year filter.

Edit Course Status

The Available Courses for [Year] page is comprised of two tabs. The Available tab displays a list of all courses available for the selected school and year. You can change a course's status, or remove all the courses from the list that do not have sections taught in the current year. The Unavailable tab displays a list of all courses that are unavailable for the selected school and year. You can change a course's status from unavailable and inactive to available and active making the course available for the selected school and year.

You can make additional courses available for this school by editing course availability information or you can make additional courses available for multiple schools and years by editing availability for schools and years.

This procedure is only performed at the school level. When accessed at the school level, only courses that are available for the selected school and year appear.

1. On the start page, choose School under Setup in the main menu.
2. Under Scheduling, click Courses.
3. Click Manage courses for this school.
   
   • To make a course active for the selected school and year, select the checkbox and then click the Submit button. Only available courses should be used in PowerScheduler and only available and active courses can be used in live scheduling. Unavailable courses are not included in this list.
   • To make courses available or unavailable, use the Edit Availability for Schools and Years district level function or the Availability tab on the district level Edit Course page.
4. Click Submit.

Edit Course Information

Course information can be edited at the district level, as well as the school level. When at the district level, you can edit District, Fees, Prerequisites, and Availability information. When at the school level, can edit District - General, District - Standards, Fees, Prerequisites, Availability, Relationships, Scheduling, and Equivalencies information.

1. On the start page, choose District under Setup in the main menu.
2. Under Courses, click Courses.
3. To narrow the list of courses, use the Filter.
4. Choose the name of the course you want to edit.
   • View Course Information By Year : Choose a year from the Select Year menu to view course information for a different year. When the End of Year process is run, it creates the CoursesByYear records for every record that already exists in Courses. Any course created after the End of Year process is completed will not appear until the next time the process is run.

District - General

When you select a Course to work with, use the Edit Course District - General Information page to manage general information for the selected course.

1. Click District - General.

2. Enter information in the fields.

   Additional Field Details:

   Field	Description
   Max Credit Hours	Enter the maximum number of credits a student receives for taking the course. The value must be greater than or equal to the Credit Hours. Once a value is entered, the value will be evaluated against the credit earned on stored grades to determine if it should be excluded from the graduation progress/graduation planner based on the association to the grading policy related to the grade scale for the course or section. Note: For more information, see Repeated Course Grade Suppression.
   CIP Code	If needed, enter the CIP code to identify courses as part of a state-managed vocational program. Select Show PE Waiver for courses that use these waivers.
   Program for All Sections	For continuing education programs. Any program specified here will automatically be considered the program that every section of the course will belong to. Since this is stored for the district this will be true for all schools that use the course. If schools other than continuation education schools use the course then specify this as no selection (blank) and designate the proper program to each section of the course created within the continuation education schools. The programs available for selection can be defined in Special Programs.
   Credit Type	Enter the credit type to indicate which credit type to display on the master schedule, such as MATH for mathematics courses, ENG for English courses, FL for foreign language courses, VOC for vocational courses, or ELEC for electives. This credit can then be applied to a graduation type, if applicable.
   Department	Click Associate to select the department for this course. Click Department to create or edit departments at your school.
   Exclude from Attendance	Select the checkbox if you do not want attendance and enrollment in this section to be counted towards any ADA/ADM calculations.
   GPA Added Value Points	Enter any added value for the grade points, such as 1 for one additional grade point. You can also use fractions of a point. Most schools do not enter added values.
   Update the Course in the District Course Archive for [Year]	Select the checkbox to update archived course information, as well as current course information. Clear the checkbox blank to only update current course information. This field only appears if the end-of-year process has been completed.
   Use the Course for Fitness Tests	Select this option to allow the teacher to enter fitness scores for the course. This option is only available if fitness tests and scales are set up for your district. Refer to the instructions for importing or exporting fitness tests and scales for more information.

3. Click Submit.

District - Standards

When you select a Course to work with, use the Edit Course District - Standards Information page to manage standards information for the selected course.

1. Click District - Standards. All of the standards associated with this course for the current year appear.

2. Enter information in the fields.

   Additional Field Details:

   Field	Description
   Weight	Enter the weight for this standard to be used to calculate into a traditional final grade when the traditional grade formula is set to be calculated by Specific Weight or Specific Sum. For more information, see Traditional Grade Calculation Formulas. The percent value is auto-calculated based on the weight entered.
   Calculate	Select the checkbox to set specific calculation methods for the lower-level standards. When selected, you must define a calculation method for the lower-level standards.
   Calculation Method	Click Edit, and then enter the weight for each standard. The percent value automatically appears.

3. Click Submit.

Fees

Click Fees to manage course enrollment fees for the selected course.

Prerequisites (Individual Courses)

Click Prerequisites to manage course prerequisites for the selected course.

Availability

1. Click Availability. If an ellipsis appears in the Schools column, there are additional schools associated with the year.
2. Click Edit. If you have view-only access to this page, the Edit button appears as a View button.

3. Move courses to the correct column.

4. Click Submit.

Relationships

The scheduling engine uses course relationships when building a student's schedule. If you define a relationship for a course with another course, you do not have to define the relationship for both courses. But, you can define the relationship for both courses so that it is easy to identify this relationship regardless of which course you are viewing. The following three types of course relationships are used in PowerSchool:

• Prerequisite: Indicates the relationship between two courses ensures that the student will be scheduled into the specified course so that the course is completed before the beginning of the second course.
• Corequisite: Indicates the relationship between two courses ensures that the student will be scheduled into both courses so that the courses are taken concurrently.
• Postrequisite: Indicates the relationship between two courses ensures that the student will be scheduled into the specified course after the student has completed the first course in the relationship.

This information is either captured as part of the PowerScheduler commit process, or it can be manually defined (added, edited, deleted) using this page.

Click Relationships to modify or create course relationships at the school level.

Scheduling

You can manage course-specific scheduling information used by the scheduling engine when building a student's schedule. This information is either captured as part of the PowerScheduler commit process or can be manually defined using this page.

1. Click Scheduling to modify scheduling information at the school level.
   Additional Field Details:

   Field	Description
   Allow Student Repeat in Same Term	Select the checkbox to allow the system to schedule a student in more than one section of this course in the same term. For example, occasionally students need to double-up on a course within the same term. This is usually done for elective courses, such as Work Release.
   Allow Student Repeat in Different Term	Select the checkbox to allow the system to schedule a student in more than one section of this course in different terms. Use this option for either academic or elective courses.
   Load Priority	Enter a numerical value of 1 to 99 (1 being the highest priority) to prioritize in which course the system should schedule a student when a conflict between two of the student's requests arises. You can enter the same load priority number for several courses. For example, enter a load priority of 10 for all academic courses to ensure that students are loaded into these courses first, 20 for academic electives, and 30 for non-academic electives.
   Load Type	Use the pop-up menu to choose whether this is an academic, elective, or alternate course. The system uses this classification to balance the types of courses in which the student is scheduled during a term. For example, if your school's scheduling terms are semesters, the system does not schedule the student in all elective courses the first semester and all academic courses the second semester.
   Use Pre-Established Teams	Select the checkbox if you want the system to reference teams when scheduling students into this course.
   Use Section Types	Select the checkbox if you want the system to schedule courses according to section types.
   Don't Allow Substitutions	Select the checkbox if you do not want the system to attempt to schedule a student in alternate courses if this course is full.
   Global Substitution	Click Associate to select the first substitution you want the system to schedule for every student who cannot be scheduled in this course. Use the additional fields to select the second and third substitutions.

2. Click Submit.

Equivalencies

Click Equivalencies to manage the relationship between a course and its equivalent. For example, if EHS101 (course) and EHS102 (course equivalent) are stored, then EHS102 courses can replace EHS101 grades. EHS102 is "equivalent to" EHS101. Once defined, course equivalencies are then used by the repeated course grade suppression process when calculating permanently store grades.

Edit Availability for Schools and Years

You can adjust course school associations by associating or disassociating courses with schools and years. Once courses are associated with schools and years, the courses are available and active on the Available Courses for [Year] page for the affected schools and years. From the Available Courses for [Year] page, the school administrator can fine-tune which courses are active or inactive.

1. From the start page, choose District > Courses.
2. To narrow the list of courses, use the Filter.
3. Click the checkbox next to the applicable courses.
4. Click Edit Availability for Schools and Years.
5. In the Select Years section, select the checkbox next to each school year you want the selected course(s) to be available.
6. Click Next.

7. Use the filter to narrow the list of schools. Use the checkboxes to select the school associations.

8. Choose the Association Type.
9. Click Next.

10. In the Summary and Confirmation section, verify the information. Associations with conflicts will not be processed.

11. Click Submit.

Edit Course List Prerequisites (Selected Courses)

You can manage course prerequisites for selected courses at the school or district level.

Edit Course Settings

You can control whether or not schools are allowed to create and edit certain course-related information at the district level.

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

2. Under Courses, click Course Settings.
   Additional Field Details:

   Field	Description
   Only allow new courses to be created at the District Office	Select the checkbox to only allow new courses to be created at the District Office. When selected, the following do not appear when signed in at the school level: New Course button on the Courses page. Courses the Table pop-up menu on the Quick Import page. Courses in the Import into this table pop-up menu on the Import Template page.

3. Clear the checkbox to allow schools to create new courses. The following appears when signed in at the school level:

• New Course button on the Courses page.
• Courses the Table pop-up menu on the Quick Import page.
• Courses in the Import into this table pop-up menu on the Import Template page.

• Click Submit.

Course Groups

You can group like-courses making it easier to manage similar courses at the school level.

1. On the start page, choose School under Setup in the main menu.
2. Under Scheduling, click Course Groups.

3. Click New in the courses menu. Enter information about the group.

4. Select the checkbox next to the name of each course to include in this group.

5. Click Submit.