The Academic Planner displays the student's assigned Academic Program and the courses the student has planned to take in each school year (represented by grade level). Counselors have a similar view to this that allows them to see your chosen courses and make modifications, if necessary. Based on the assigned Academic Program, students must meet credit requirements, course requirements, test requirements and GPA requirements. The goal is to meet each requirement for each grade level.
Options available in the Academic Plan require preferences to be turned on by your school administrator.
Academic Plan
Select an Academic Program
When first accessing the Academic Planner, select and/or verify an Academic Plan from the dropdown list. Also select the desired Post Grad Location (where you are going to attend college) and your Post Grad Plans. Click the Next button when finished.
Academic Plan Selection
You can search for and add courses using the Course Catalog option, or if you know the course name or course number, you can add the courses directly to your plan.
If the program you selected does not have credit requirements, you won't be able to add information or see your progress. Contact your counselor for assistance.
Things to Know About the Academic Plan
Academic Plan Alerts and Warnings
Each time a change is made to the Academic Plan, all rules and requirements are reevaluated and updated alerts and messages display. The plan does not need to be saved to show these alerts. When the alerts have been satisfied, they will be removed.
Warnings
- Warnings display in black font when there is a failure to meet a Credit Requirement or a Course or Compound Requirement. A compound requirement includes both a course and a test requirement.
- Plans can still be saved when warnings exist.
Alerts and Errors
- Students who have an Academic Plan that has an error cannot save changes they've made to their course plan from the Portal.
- Alerts display when:
- A grade does not have enough credits planned.
- A credit type does not have enough credits planned.
Depending on your school's selection of Portal options, an academic plan can only be saved if the selected courses meet all requirements and planning rules. It may be possible to save the selected courses without meeting all requirements, but all planning rules must still be met.
Warning messages from failed requirements and failed planning rules display, explaining the issues that need to be corrected.
Warnings and Alerts
Course Display
A course is available for selection when the course is marked as active. Courses that appear in the dropdown lists are pulled from the student's most future enrollment calendar, based on the primary enrollment (partial or special education enrollments are not used).
- Courses that are set to be recommended from a course requirement display in bold text.
- Courses that have been completed (have been posted to the transcript) and in-progress courses (student is currently scheduled into) display as such when hovering over the course.
- Courses that can be taken multiple times display for each grade level. Students can select these courses in any grade level.
- Courses that have planning rules associated with them that have not been satisfied display in gray text when choosing courses in the dropdown list when choosing courses.
- Courses that have a planning rule of Parent of/Child of display both the parent course and the child courses.
- The correct credit value for each course (parent and child) displays.
- The correct total value per credit type for each course (parent and child) displays.
- The correct total value per grade level displays for each course (parent and child).
- When a parent course is removed from the course plan, the child courses are also removed.
- A child course with a different credit type displays in the correct credit type frame and displays the correct credit amount. All child courses display as locked.
- When selecting a course with a Parent of rule, and the child course has a different credit type, the credit type displays after each course to identity which credit type they are associated.
- Planned courses that do not meet planning rules assigned on the course display as a planning rule violation.
- If a student has not taken or planned a required course tied to a course requirement, an alert displays.
Credits Earned, Credits In-Progress
Repeating Courses
Planning Rule Violation
Course Requirement Violation
Credit Display
Existing credits applied to high school courses (those from middle school or transferred credit) display in the credit type section to which they apply. Any credit assigned to the credit type that is considered overflow displays as well.
Credit Overflow Assigned
Planning Rules
Principals, counselors and other staff at the school work together to maintain the courses available for students. As part of this setup, they may have added certain rules that determine when students can plan a course for a certain year. These rules are visible when selecting courses from the Course Catalog (see Image 3) and when saving the Academic Planner.
Course Planning Rules Violation
Because of these rules, the courses in the Academic Planner may display differently. The following table provides details on these rules.
| Planning Rule | Course Display | Catalog Search Display | Alerts, Warnings and Errors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prerequisite | A course displays in red when a student selects a course that has a prerequisite rule but has not previously taken that prerequisite course or has not planned the prerequisite course. | If the prerequisite was met, the course cannot be selected for the same year in which the prerequisite course was taken. But the course can be selected in other years. Both courses remain in the course catalog search results. If the prerequisite was not met, the course cannot be selected and all buttons display in gray (inactive). | If a course is missing its prerequisite(s) on the course plan, the user receive an error when attempting to save. If a student takes the Prerequisite course(s) but does not meet or exceed the credit value to meet the requirement, an alert displays. If a student takes the Prerequisite course(s) but does not meet or exceed the Min GPA Value to meet the requirement, an alert displays. |
| Equivalent | Courses display in red if the user selects more than one course listed as an equivalent. | A student can only take one course in the equivalent rule. If the course and one of its equivalents has already been taken or planned, the course cannot be selected. | N/A |
| Concurrent | Courses display in red if the student hasn't selected a course that meets the concurrent rule. | If a concurrent course is searched but its counterpart has not been requested, the course can be selected. If a concurrent course is searched and its counterpart has been requested, the course can be selected. | If both courses have not been selected in the same year, an alert message displays. If only one of the courses has been selected, an alert message displays. Failure to meet or exceed the credit minimum requirement triggers an Alert message. |
| Prerequisite and Concurrent | A course that is selected on the student's course plan and has a prerequisite or concurrent rule displays in RED on a students course plan screen if they haven't taken or planned to take the course(s) that meet the prerequisite or concurrent rule. | If a prerequisite or concurrent course is not in the course plan, user can search and select the course. If a prerequisite or concurrent course is in the course plan, any remaining prerequisite or concurrent course can be added in any year in the course plan.
| An alert message displays if a course is selected and the user has not selected the other course in a previous year or in the same school year. Failure to meet the minimum credit requirement triggers an alert message. The student must meet or exceed this credit value on their transcript to meet the requirement. Failure to meet or exceed the minimum GPA requirement triggers an alert message. The student must meet or exceed this value to be considered as on-track. |
| Parent Of | Only the Parent Course is available for selection in the Course Plan. The Parent Course credit is a total of all the courses included in the parent/child setup. If there is credit overflow, it displays the total amount of credits as a sum of the parent child courses. | If the parent course is already on the course plan, it displays in gray. | N/A |
| Child Of | Courses marked as Child Of are not available for selection in the Course Plan. | N/A | N/A |
Parent and Guardian Approval
When you are finished building your academic plan, have your parents/guardians review it by having them log into the Portal with their own username and password and mark the Approved by parent/legal guardian checkbox.
Parent/Guardian ApprovalSystem Display Options and Academic Planner Abilities
Schools have the ability to choose what displays in the portal. These choices affect the functionality of the options that display for parents and students in the Portal. Depending on the options chosen, the student and parent may not be able to do all expected things. See the following table for what happens when these options are selected.
| Selected Portal Display Options | Portal Academic Progress Behavior |
|---|---|
| Student without an Academic Plan | |
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| Students with an Academic Plan | |
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| Parent of a Student without Academic Plan | |
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| Parent of a Student with an Academic Plan | |
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| Academic Planner |
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Add Courses from the Course Catalog
Use the Course Catalog to locate courses that would be of interest to you. If you know the name of the course, enter that name in the field, or a partial name. Matching results display. When a course is chosen, a description displays, providing more information about the curriculum of the course, any planning rules set for the course, total number of credits given, course fees (if any), and an option to add that course to the plan.
- Courses can only be added for grade levels that have related credit requirements.
- Courses can only be added if you/your student has not previously taken the course.
- Courses can only be added if it is not currently on the plan.
Course Catalog Searching
If this is the course you'd like to take, click the Add to Grade button. Courses can be added to any future grade level. This places the course on your plan in the indicated grade level for that credit type.
Adding a Course from the Course Catalog Search
Add Courses
- Click in the text box below the number of credits for a certain grade level. Courses meeting that credit type display for selection.
- Choose the desired course(s). When they are added, they display and the number of credits is updated. The credits assigned to a course appear after the course name.
- Add enough credits for future years as needed. When the student has met the number of requirements, the alert that displays for each credit type stating not enough credits are selected disappears.
- Repeat these steps for each credit type. At the end of the process, you should have a clear idea of what courses he will be taking in each grade level.
- Click the Save icon when finished.
Adding Course
Add Alternate Courses to the Plan
Adding alternate courses is done the same way as entering other courses. Enter alternative courses to take in the event the planned courses cannot be scheduled. Alternate courses are placed on the schedule based on the order assigned to the alternate courses.
Use the arrows to move the courses into the desired order. In the example below, if an alternate course is going to be placed, the Wizard attempts to place the course first in the list (3046 AP Environmental Science) before placing the second course in the list (9008 Sports & Entertainment Market).
Alternate Course Planning
Note the following:
- Alternate courses can only be planned for future years. A current year freshman student can only plan alternates for the sophomore, junior and senior years.
- If a course is already planned as a desired course, it cannot be planned as an alternate in the same year it is planned. But it can be added as an alternate in a different year. A student could plan to take a World Affairs course in the junior year, but could add it as an alternate in the sophomore year.
- Courses planned as alternates do not satisfy planning rules. If an alternate course is planned and it violates a planning rule, the course is included in the list of alerts.
- Counselors cannot lock or unlock alternate courses.
- Courses that are part of a compound requirement display in bold.
Print Options
Print Course Plan Report
To print a copy of your course plan, click the Course Plan Report button. A PDF view of your course plan displays, including Alternate Course selections.Only saved entries on the course plan are printed. If you added a course but did not save, and clicked print, the new course you added is not included in the print.
Course Plan Report
Print Progress Report
To print a copy of your progress in the selected academic program, click the Academic Plan Progress Report button from Document > Other. Choose which program to print the progress, select to print a summary or a detail of the progress. The Summary Report includes information on the student's assigned graduation program, their on-track status, and the student's progress. The Detail Report includes all of the information in the summary report, plus the information on the specifics of the requirement, and allows the selection of credit type details, course requirement details, test requirement details and compound requirement details.
Depending on the Report Format selected, a PDF or DOCX view of your course plan displays, including Alternate Course selections. Only saved entries on the course plan are printed. If you added a course but did not save, and clicked print, the new course you added is not included in the print.
Progress Report
If your school has not turned on the preference for Academic planner, the Progress Report can still be generated from the Student App.
