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Honor Roll Administration

The ability to calculate your honor roll based on grading, behavior, or attendance information is important to a school. Every school has its own way of calculating or determining who is on the honor roll and who is eligible for extracurricular activities.

First, define the various honor roll lists used by a school or district. Within those lists, set up the different honor levels that may be attained and the criteria for meeting each level. Once the setup is complete, the PowerSchool administrator should run the calculation function periodically throughout the school year. The results of the calculation are stored in a separate table in the database. These results can be viewed as a summary for a single student, a group report, or as individual components of a custom page, export, or custom report using report codes.

Honor Roll Methods

Honor roll methods define the various honor roll lists used by a school or district. You can create as many different honor roll methods as needed. Honor roll methods can be school-specific or shared among all schools on a server.

Honor Roll Levels

Every honor roll method will contain one or more honor roll levels. The evaluation order of honor roll levels is significant. Typically, the highest honor with the most stringent criteria is evaluated first. If a student does not meet the criteria for that level, the criteria for the next highest honor will be evaluated, and so on. If a student meets the criteria for an honor roll level, a record of that honor is created and the remaining levels are skipped.

The evaluation of the criteria within each honor roll level is cumulative, meaning a student must meet all of the specified options to receive that honor. You can create as many different honor roll levels as needed.

Honor Roll Calculations

Once the honor roll methods and levels have been set up, you can calculate an honor roll at any time.

Create an Honor Roll Method

Honor rolls that use a GPA Calculation Type of Current (set on the GPA Calculation Methods page) must have a term set up that matches the Final Grade setup. For example, if an Honor Roll for the Q1 Final Grade is used, not only is a Q1 Final Grade needed, but a Q1 term setup in years and terms is also needed.

  1. Navigate to the Honor Roll Methods page. 
  2. Click New. 
  3. Enter the name of the honor roll method. This is the name that will be referred to in honor roll report codes and on other menu pages.
  4. Enter a description.
  5. Specify whether the honor roll method can be used by all schools on the server, or only the current school.
  6. Click Submit. 
  7. Click Levels next to the method you just created. 
  8. Click New. 
  9. Enter the name of the honor roll level. This is the level name that appears on report pages and is the default value returned by the honor roll report code. This name does not need to be unique, allowing you to define multiple sets of criteria for a given level.
  10. Enter a description.
  11. Enter a value specifying the order in which the various honor roll levels will be evaluated. Lower numbers are evaluated first.
  12. Enter the message you want to appear on report cards and transcripts.
  13. Choose the GPA calculation method. The GPA calculation method is used for two things: determining a GPA value that may be compared against a specified cutoff value and building a list of letter grades that will be used in the Grade Options settings described below. Every honor roll level must specify a GPA calculation method.
  14. Choose whether the comparison should be numeric or text.
  15. Choose the comparator to use when comparing the result of the GPA calculation. Enter the cutoff value in the provided field. If you do not want to compare the value of the GPA calculation, leave the cutoff value field blank.

  16. Select Only include grades to override the settings used in the GPA calculation method so that any grades that have been flagged to be excluded from honor roll are not used in the calculation or returned in the list of grades for the grade options.

  17. Choose the comparator to use when comparing the total of the potential credit hours from the list of grades returned by the GPA calculation. Enter the cutoff value.
  18. Choose the comparator to use when comparing the total of the earned credit hours from the list of grades returned by the GPA calculation. Enter the cutoff value.
  19. Choose the comparator to use when comparing the number of unique course numbers found in the list of grades returned by the GPA calculation. Enter the cutoff value.

  20. Choose a comparison for the Grade Options and enter a comma-separated list of letter grades:

    • At least: There must be at least <the specified number> of any of the grades below in the list of grades returned by the GPA calculation
    • No more than: There cannot be any more than <the specified number> of any of the grades below in the list of grades returned by the GPA calculation
    • Exactly: There must be no more than and no less than <the specified number> of any of the grades below in the list of grades returned by the GPA calculation
    • None: There cannot be any of the grades below in the list of grades returned by the GPA calculation
    • Only: There must be only the grades below in the list of grades returned by the GPA calculation.
  21. Click Submit. 
  22. Verify the evaluation order.
  23. Click Submit. 

Edit an Honor Roll Method

Note: Honor rolls that use a GPA Calculation Type of Current (Start Page > District Setup > GPA Calculations > Calculation Methods > New > Calculation Type = Current) must have a term set up that matches the Final Grade setup. For example, if an Honor Roll for the Q1 Final Grade is used, not only is a Q1 Final Grade needed, but a Q1 term setup in years and terms is also needed.

  1. Navigate to the Honor Roll Methods page. 
  2. Click the method you want to edit. 
  3. Edit the information as needed. 
  4. Click Submit. 

Delete an Honor Roll Method

  1. Navigate to the Honor Roll Methods page. 
  2. Click the method you want to delete. 
  3. Click Delete.
  4. Click Confirm Delete. 

Edit Honor Roll Levels

  1. Navigate to the Honor Roll Methods page. 
  2. Click the levels of the honor roll you want to edit. 
  3. Click the level you want to edit. 
  4. Edit the information as needed. 
  5. Click Submit. 

Delete Honor Roll Levels

  1. Navigate to the Honor Roll Methods page. 
  2. Click the levels of the honor roll you want to edit. 
  3. Click the level you want to delete. 
  4. Click Delete.
  5. Click Confirm Delete. 

Calculate the Honor Roll

  1. Navigate to the Calculate Honor Roll page. 
  2. Indicate which students for whom you want to calculate honor roll.
  3. Enter a valid store code (a letter followed by a single number).
  4. Choose the method by which you want the honor roll calculated.

  5. Click Submit. 

The results of honor roll calculations may be viewed for a single student or for a group of students.

Honor Roll Codes

The honor roll code returns data based on honor roll calculations that are periodically run by the PowerSchool administrator. The honor roll code provides an easy way to access the stored data when working with a single student, such as a custom student page, quick export, or object report.

The basic syntax of the honor roll code is illustrated by the examples below. The code always starts with *honorroll and is followed by several parameters (name/value pairs). These parameters are always of the form name=value. Certain parameters are required. All other parameters are optional and default values will be used if omitted.

~(*honorroll method=High School term=Q2)
~(*honorroll method=NHS term=S1 year=2002 result=gpa)
~(*honorroll method=Honors term=Q2 grade=11)

The following table lists the parameters, values, and examples for the honor roll code. Parameters and values can be included in the code in any sequence.

Parameter

Description

Example

Method

Specifies the name of the honor roll method to return. These methods are predefined by the user in the Honor Roll section of school setup. The method parameter is required. If omitted, an error message is returned.

method=High School
method=NHS

Term

A single term abbreviation. Specifies the store code of the appropriate honor roll record. The term parameter is required. If omitted, an error message is returned.

term=S1
term=Q3

Grade

A single grade level. For KG, PK, use the numeric code 0, -1, and so forth. Specifies the historical grade level of the appropriate honor roll record. Note that grade and year are often mutually exclusive and the use of both parameters in the code may cause no record to be found. If no grade or year parameter is specified, will find an honor roll record from the current school year.

grade=12
grade=8

year

A single four-digit school year. Remember that school years in PowerSchool are specified using the start year. For example, for the 2003-2004 school year, use 2003. Specifies the school year of the appropriate honor roll record. Note that grade and year are often mutually exclusive and the use of both parameters in the code may cause no record to be found. If no grade or year parameter is specified, will find an honor roll record from the current school year.

year=2003
year=2004

Result

The type of data to return as the result. Valid options are level, message, gpa, schoolname, and date. Level means return the name of the honor roll level met. Message means return the text message for the honor roll level. GPA means return the GPA used to determine the honor roll level. Schoolname means return the name of the school where the student earned the honor roll. Date means return the date the honor roll was calculated. If omitted, level is returned. Note that if no honor roll is found that matches the parameters specified, no text will be returned regardless of the result setting.

result=level
result=message
result=gpa
result=schoolname
result=date

The following are annotated examples of various honor roll codes.

High school honor roll from Q3 of the student's junior year:
~(*honorroll method=High School term=Q3 grade=11)

The GPA used to determine that honor roll level:
~(*honorroll method=High School term=Q3 grade=11 result=gpa)

The NHS honor roll message from S2 of the current school year:
~(*honorroll method=NHS term=S2 result=message)

The date the Q1 Honors honor roll was calculated for this student in the 2002-2003 school year:
~(*honorroll method=Honors term=Q1 year=2002 result=date)

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