School Months, Attendance Periods, Reporting Periods

Tool Search: School Month

School Months break down the months within the school year into segments of time, most often used for state reporting. School Months can be created in one school calendar and copied to other school calendars using the Calendar Wizard.

Screenshot of the School Month editor, located at Scheduling & Courses, Calendar Setup.School Month Editor


School Months are linked to Calendars, not to Schedule Structures. When there are multiple schedule structures in a calendar and the structures have different days (especially instructional/non-instructional designations), the day counts on the School Month report are not accurate.

State-specific Naming Convention and Requirements

Not all states require school months. For those that do, the naming of this tool varies. For these states, certain requirements are often determined to meet state reporting needs. The following states refer to School Months as the following:

  • School Months = California, Kentucky, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina
  • Attendance Periods = Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas
  • Reporting Periods = Tennessee

Please consult applicable state reporting articles for more information.

School Month Editor

The School Month editor is sorted by the Sequence column, with the lowest sequence appearing first.

Data Element

Description

Name

Name of the school month. The school month should be named to match state specifications. When there are no requirements, use a name that can be consistent with the other school months.

Sequence

Order in which the school months appear, starting with 1. Sequences must be whole numbers.

Start Date

Start date of the school month. Dates are entered in mmddyy format. 


A value must be entered in this field for the auto-population of Days and/or End Date to calculate.

DaysNumeric value that is auto-populated with the number of instructional days between the entered Start and End Dates in that row. 
  • When a value is entered into the Days field, the End Date auto-populates with the total number of days between that date and the Start Date.
  • When the Exclude Start/End Date fields are populated, any instructional days within the entered date range that overlap the Start/End Dates are not counted as instructional days. 
    • The Days filed updates based on any date range entered in the Exclude Start/End Date fields.
    • When a Days value is entered, any overlapping instructional days within the entered Exclude Start/End Date fields range is excluded from the End Date calculation.

Days = End Date - Start Date

End Date

End Date of the school month. Dates are entered in mmddyy format.


End Date = Start Date plus Days. 

Exclude Start 

First date that is not included in the total count of days in the school month (i.e., Winter Break). Dates are entered in mmddyy format.

Exclude End

Last date that is not included in the total count of days in the school month (i.e., Winter Break). Dates are entered in mmddyy format.

Close Date

Not required in all states
Indicates the last date that attendance information can be modified. Dates are entered in mmddyy format.

 

Once a school month is closed, a user needs rights to the School Month tool or the checkbox on Calendar Rights for Close School Months, which must be marked in order for attendance data to be modified.


Users may modify attendance after a closed date of the School Month when:

  • Appropriate rights are assigned to attendance tools:
    • At least RW rights are assigned to Classroom Monitor.
    • At least R rights are assigned to Attendance Wizard.
    • At least RW rights are assigned to Student Attendance.
  • Modify Rights checkbox is marked on the Calendar School Year rights.
  • At least RW rights are assigned to School Months; OR
  • Close School Months checkbox is marked on the Calendar School Year rights.

School Months Date Logic

  • The End Date must be later than the Start Date.
  • The Close Date must be later than the End Date.
  • Exclude Start must be the same or later than the Start Date.
  • Exclude End must be earlier than or the same as the End Date.
  • ALL Calendar Information must be established prior to creating School Months, including Periods, Terms, and Days. 

Add School Months

  1. Enter the Name of the School Month.
  2. Enter the Sequence of the School Month.
  3. Enter the Start Date of the School Month. 
  4. Enter either the total number of Days in the School Month OR enter the End Date of the School Month.Whichever field is left blank auto-populates with the correct value based on what was entered in the populated field. 
  5. Enter the Exclude Start and Exclude End Dates as needed.
  6. Enter the Close Date.
  7. Add additional School Months in the subsequent rows.
  8. Add more rows by clicking the Add School Months button. This adds another row to the detail editor.
  9. Click the Save icon when finished.

Print School Months

Once school months are created, they can be printed in PDF or DOCX format by selecting the Print button at the top of the screen. Non-school days print in yellow shaded cells; Non-instructional days print in blue shaded cells.

School Month Print

Delete School Months

School Months are deleted one at a time by clicking the X to the left of the row that contains the school month to be deleted. An alert message appears indicating that the deletion occurs when the Save icon is selected.