As the school year is quickly coming to an end, it's time to begin planning for summer school setup in both FastBridge (the assessment system) and Student Success (the MTSS data system). Each system handles summer data differently, so we've outlined a bit about each below, as well as summer school progress monitoring preparations below.
FastBridge Summer Overview
Rosters:
Until the FastBridge system is rolled over to the new school year for your district, roster data will continue to add new students, courses, and teachers but will not remove any of the previous enrollments or roster data in place on the last day of school.
Progress Monitoring:
Progress monitoring plans that have been dated to end after summer school is completed will remain accessible until the rollover to the new school year. If you will continue monitoring throughout summer school, your district will want to select the rollover date that is after summer school ends. See the rollover information below.
Rollover to the new school year: Information is available in the Iowa End of Year Rollover article
Student Success Summer Overview
Rosters:
Student school enrollments and rosters will be static as of the last day of your school year. Changes made to student data, enrollment or schedule in your student information system will not be reflected in Student Success. Staff user roles may still be assigned in your student information system.
Reports and data:
All reports and data will remain available but static effective the last day of your school year until the system rollover is completed. More information will be provided, as it’s available.
Data collected after the end of the school year will not be transferred or displayed in Student Success. This includes progress monitoring data collected throughout summer school.
Interventions:
Interventions will be visible on the student’s profile but can’t be updated and will not show progress monitoring collected after the end of your school year.
Action required: Please make sure to mark ALL active interventions as ‘completed’ (either goal met or not met) before the end of the school year. This information is used in the intervention effectiveness report.
Static and smart groups:
Groups you’ve created or that are shared with you remain available indefinitely. They do not get wiped from the system with summer rollover, they’re visible until you (or the original creator of the group) deletes them.
Preparing for Summer School Progress Monitoring in FastBridge
Staff Access to Students
Teachers will need access to the students they serve for summer school in FastBridge, which can be handled a few different ways, depending on the summer school location and the level of access the district chooses for the teachers. Outlined below are a few of the most common setups used for staff access during summer school and what is entered in your student information system (SIS) for them. If you have any questions about options or have another idea and want to see if it will work, please contact help@fastbridge.org and we’ll be happy to think it through with you!
The easiest way to handle summer school access is to assign a Specialist role to the summer school teacher for the building(s) where the students normally attend. The teacher may then navigate to the student in their home building, access data and administer progress monitoring.
Pros: This requires the least amount of data entry in your SIS and doesn’t require any changes to student information.
Cons: The teacher may need to navigate to different buildings for students (if multiple sites are combined for summer school) and will have access to ALL students in the building, not just those served in summer school.
The next easiest way is to assign the teacher a Classroom User role in the building(s) where the students normally attend, then create a summer school course assigned to the teacher in the building(s) and schedule the students into the course(s).
Pros: This doesn’t require changing the student’s school enrollment, only the student’s schedule. It also gives the teacher access to the appropriate students but not ALL students in the building.
Cons: The teacher may need to navigate to different buildings for students (for combined summer school). It also requires course setup and student schedule changes in your SIS which would need to be removed in the portal at the end of the summer.
The last common option is specific to districts combining multiple buildings into summer school at one location but is the least recommended way of handling it. In order to view summer school students from multiple school buildings on one list, you would need to do the following in your SIS:
- Create a school enrollment record for the students in the building where summer school will be held (or at least where the teacher will access it from)
- Create a summer school course in that building, ideally assigned to the summer school teacher(s)
- Schedule students into the summer school course
- Assign the teacher a Specialist or Classroom User role in that building
Pros: All students can be on one student list, in the same building.
Cons: It’s quite a bit of extra data entry work in your student information system for multiple buildings and with that, there’s an opportunity for mistakes in entry and exiting of the enrollments/courses.
Progress Monitoring Plan
In order to use a student’s existing progress monitoring plan for their summer school monitoring collection, the plan must have an end date that is after summer school ends.
Reviewing Summer School Data
Data collected after the school year has ended will ONLY be available in the FastBridge system. It will not be transferred to the Student Success system nightly and will not be batch uploaded later.