Years and Terms

On this page:

Define years and terms for your school. Years and terms affect many aspects of PowerSchool, such as the calendar setup, scheduling, enrollment, and final grades.

First, create the year term for your school. Then, define additional terms for the school year, if necessary.

Terms created on the Years & Terms page are "scheduling terms," which define the entire length of a school year (year term) as well as the length of sections offered during the school year (semester, quarter, etc.). Classes offered during the school year determine the required scheduling terms. If students have the same teacher, room, and section throughout the year, only the year term is needed. However, if students change teachers, rooms, or sections throughout the year, create additional terms of varying lengths (semester, quarter, etc.).

Note: Scheduling terms differ from grading terms. For information about defining grading terms, see Final Grade Setup.

Add a School Year

Once you add the year term for a school, you cannot delete it.

1. On the start page, choose School under Setup in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling, click Years & Terms. 
3. Click New. 

4. Use the following table to enter information in the fields:

   Type	Description
   Name of School Year	Enter the school year name.
   Abbreviation	Enter the abbreviation of the school year. For the year term, use numbers. For example, enter 20-21 for the 2020-2021 school year. Note: This value should only be based on a numeric two digit year.
   First Day of School	Enter the start date of the school year using the format mm/dd/yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy. If you do not use this format, an alert appears. If you submit the date with an incorrect format, the date field is submitted as a blank entry.
   Last Day of School	Enter the end date of the school year using the format mm/dd/yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy. If you do not use this format, an alert appears. If you submit the date with an incorrect format, the date field is submitted as a blank entry.

5. Click Submit. 

Edit a School Year

Once you add a year term for a school, you can edit the elements of the term.

Note: When editing years and terms, be sure to follow the documented process outlined in How To Add or Remove Days From the Current School Year.

1. On the start page, choose School under Setup in the main menu.
2. Under Scheduling, click Years & Terms. 
3. Click Edit Terms. 
4. Click the name of the year term. 
5. Edit the information as needed. For field descriptions, see Add a School Year.
6. Click Submit. 

Define Terms

Define terms shorter than the year term in order to schedule sections of varying lengths (semester, quarter, etc.).

1. On the start page, choose School under Setup in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling, click Years & Terms. 
3. Click Edit Terms next to the school year for which you want to define terms.
4. Click New. 

5. Use the following table to enter information in the fields:

   Field	Description
   Name of the Term	Enter the name of the term, which indicates when it occurs during the academic year. For example, enter Semester 1.
   Abbreviation	Enter an abbreviation for the term. For the year term, use numbers. For example, enter 09-10 for the 2009-2010 school year. For additional terms, the first character of the abbreviation must be a letter. For example, enter S1 for Semester 1.
   First Day of Term	Enter the date of the first day of the term using the format mm/dd/yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy. If you do not use this format, an alert appears. If you submit the date with an incorrect format, the date field is submitted as a blank entry.
   Last Day of Term	Enter the date of the last day of the term using the format mm/dd/yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy. If you do not use this format, an alert appears. If you submit the date with an incorrect format, the date field is submitted as a blank entry.
   Hide Classes For This Term From Parents/Students	Select the checkbox to hide classes for this term from parents/students in the PowerSchool Student and Parent portal, PowerSchool Mobile app, and Unified Classroom. Otherwise, leave blank. Once submitted, an asterisk appears next to the term indicating that classes for the term are hidden from parents/students. Note: This setting is only applicable to the selected term. If a term contains subterms that you want to hide, you will need to select this setting for each of those subterms. Note: You may also want to disable the My Data feature in the PowerSchool Student and Parent portal so that course information is not available through this feature. To disable My Data Download for parents, go to the Security Settings page in the System Administrator > System Settings and set Enable MyData Download for Parents to Off.
   What portion of the school year this term represents	Select the fraction or item that represents the portion of the school year during which the term takes place. For example, if you define Semester 1 and your school operates with trimesters, Semester 1 represents one-third of your school year.
   Import File Term #	If you plan to import schedule or historical data from another system and the data is different from the abbreviation you define, enter the term code the other system uses to represent this term. For example, you might want to import data from a system that uses 1, 2, 3, and 4 to represent quarter terms Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. When you define Q1, enter 1 in the Import File Term # field. Then, when you import any data from the other system, PowerSchool saves information from term 1 as term Q1.

6. Click Submit. 

Edit Terms

1. On the start page, choose School under Setup in the main menu. 
2. Under Scheduling, click Years & Terms. 
3. Click Edit Terms next to the school year you want to edit.
4. Click the term you want to edit. 
5. Edit the information as needed. For field descriptions, see Define Terms.
6. Click Submit.