Note: This is not a class registration system, like in colleges. It does not place students in specific classes yet, and it is not first-come-first-served. Instead, students simply indicate which courses they would prefer, which your academic counselors will review and use to build the final schedule.

Student/Parent Login

Students and parents login and go to the Course Requests screen to check which courses they would like. It lists only the courses designated for the student's grade level, and includes course descriptions. Some courses have a menu to select 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice, so if they can't get their 1st choice classes it will try their 2nd choices, and so on.

You may optionally require parents to approve their child's course requests. In this case, first the student logs in to select courses, then the parent logs in to approve it. The parent cannot change any selections, and the student cannot change anything after it is approved. (If the parent has no computer access, the student can print the webpage for their parent to sign.) Alternatively, if parent approval is not required, both the student and parent can make changes anytime.

There is also a text box for students and parents to type any special requests for the admin to see.

You may restrict some courses so students must get approval from a teacher or admin first before they can select the course. (See Courses below.)

The admin can take course requests offline anytime.

Reviewing Requests

On the screen, admins can review each student's course requests. (You can do this anytime. Students do not need to "submit" their requests.)

Course requests are tightly integrated with the Four-Year Plan. Any courses already on the plan will be pre-selected for the student, but they can request to drop or change those (it does not remove anything from the plan, so you can see all requested changes). Any new courses they select will be added to the plan. You can modify their selections anytime as needed.

On the plan, each course is designated as Required, 1st choice, 2nd choice, or 3rd choice. This sets priorities for the scheduler. (If you plan a course as 1st/2nd/3rd choice, students are given a menu to change that choice or drop it entirely. But if you plan a course as Required, there is no such menu, so students can only request to drop it.)

If parent approval is required, it shows whether the parent has approved it or not. This is for your information only; it does not prevent the student from being scheduled.

Course Recommendations

Teachers and admins may recommend courses for specific students. (This is like an electronic signature to approve a course request. We don't mean letters of recommendation.) Students must get a recommendation before they can request courses which are restricted.

Teachers go to the screen, select the course, and type one or more names (or paste a list of names). A shortcut is provided to make it especially easy to select students from your own classes. For example, a French teacher may select "Copy students with [B-] or higher in [French 3]" to pre-approve them for French 4, and it copies all the qualifying students from her gradebook. (To undo a recommendation, simply delete the student from the list.)

Admins go to the screen. First add the course to the plan if it's not already there. Then click the course and select "Recommend". (Select "Un-Recommend" to undo.) On the plan, courses that are recommended show a star. Courses that are restricted and waiting for a recommendation show an asterisk.

Note you can recommend courses even if they are not restricted. Recommended courses appear with a star on the student's course request form, and it shows who recommended it, so you can use this to encourage students to take certain classes. (It does not force the student to take the course, so it's still their decision.)

You can recommend a student anytime, even before course recommendations are online for students. Recommendations apply for the whole year, so if you recommend a course for 1st semester, they can still select it 2nd semester.

Note: It does not know which department teachers belong to, so it does not restrict which courses you can recommend. If you accidentally recommend a course that you're not authorized to, delete your recommendations.

Below are all the preparations required for course requests:

Setup Online

On the screen, type the instructions to appear on the course request form, such as deadlines and reminders about graduation and college entrance requirements. (The same instructions appear for all grade levels.) Give instructions for how many courses students must choose, e.g., "Select 5 classes, plus at least 3 classes as your 2nd or 3rd choices." (Note, the more classes students choose for 2nd and 3rd choices, the easier it is to schedule. The system does not force or limit how many choices students can make.)

Optionally check "Require parent approval" so parents are prompted to click a button "I Approve These Courses".

Courses

On the screen, set the attributes for each course:

Allow course request — Uncheck to hide from course requests. For example, if you want course requests only for electives, check this only for the elective classes and uncheck it for everything else. In that case you would manually schedule the required courses on the plan, and the course requests would add the electives.

Grad Req — The graduation requirements are used to organize courses into topic areas, like English, Math, etc. (even if you don't actually track graduation requirements).

Grade Level(s) — Students see only courses for their own grade level.

Gender — This is used to separate Boys and Girls PE, etc. (For all-girls or all-boys schools, just leave this as the default Coed.)

Description — For students and parents to see when choosing courses.

Check "Students need approval from teacher/staff" to prevent students from requesting a course without prior approval/recommendation from a teacher or admin. Use the description to tell them who to see for approval/recommendation. (But note the same course description applies to all schools in your district, so use broader descriptions like "See your math teacher..." instead of naming specific people.)

Draft Schedules

You must create a draft schedule so it knows which specific courses are being offered that grading period. Leave the schedule as a draft; do not publish it yet. (If you had already published it, create a new draft and select the option to copy the published schedule.)

When you are ready for students to start selecting courses, check "Course requests online now" at the top of the screen. That puts course requests online immediately. Uncheck this to take course requests offline. (This applies to the whole school. You cannot set it online for just some students.)

Note that course requests are for only one term at a time, not the whole year. For example, students make course requests before 1st semester, and again before 2nd semester. This makes a smoother transition, since students inevitably make lots of schedule changes at the start of 1st semester which make their 2nd semester choices outdated. Alternatively, you may simply use the student's 2nd and 3rd choices from 1st semester to schedule their 2nd semester classes, so you only need to do course requests once a year.


See also: Four-Year Plans, Automatic Scheduling