Mississippi Start of Year Checklist

Use the following checklist to track your progress through the Start of Year tasks for State Reporting. Review the PowerSchool Start of Year Guide for additional updates. 

District Administration

• Review and update District Information (District Name and District Number on District Info page)
  • Review CRDC District Information.
• Review and update Log Entry Fields
  • Verify all Log Entry Fields used for state reporting are not set to Hide in the sort order column.
  • Validate all Log Entry Fields are set to have the correct options as noted in the Log Entry Fields section of the District Setup page.
• Review entry, exit, and ethnicity codes
  • See the Appendix for a list of state Entry and Exit codes. Note: Dropout and Reentry codes are configured as Entry and Exit Codes.
  • Review MS Federal Race and Ethnicity Codes Import Instructions
• Review and update Districts of Residence
  • Districts of Residence are used to report 'Resident District Number'.
• Review and update school information
  • Verify the Schedule Type (Used by Personnel Report)
  • Flag the applicable Title I settings for Title I school-wide schools.
  • Review and update CRDC School information.
• Update course information
  • Validate courses have a valid State Course Number in either the Alternate Course Number or Course Number field.
  • Update as needed fields required for state reporting: Course Name, Credit Hours, Vocational Program Level, Attendance Minutes, Special Programs
  • NEW: Flag courses as SPED or Gifted Courses (used in Validation)
• Review and update Grade Setup (Grade Scales).
• Create Years and Terms at District Office for the new school year. The start and end dates should encompass the earliest school start date and the latest school end date.

School Administration

• Review Years & Terms
  • Verify Semester or Quarter terms exist at the school if you have year long sections. The term abbreviation for Semester or Quarter terms should match a term/semester code to be reported in the Monthly Student Data.
• Review Periods and Cycle Days
• Review Sections
  • if using Section time exclusions, verify the exclusions are entered (or imported) for the sections.
• Review Bell Schedule
  • The Bell Schedule is used to determine potential minutes for the day for ALL students.
• Complete Calendar Setup
• Review Attendance Codes, Categories, and Conversions and Attendance Preferences.
  • Verify both Meeting and Daily attendance methods are checked on the Preferences page. MS Reports use a combination of Daily and Meeting Attendance to calculate the 63%. Daily Attendance is used for clocking a student in and out of school, while meeting attendance is used to mark individual periods absent or present.
  • For a refresher on how attendance is calculated for Mississippi, see the Mississippi Attendance Reports and the 63% Rule portion of the State Reports Guide.
• Review full-time equivalencies

Staff Setup

• Review Staff member demographic information

Student Setup

• Review student Demographics information
• Review Emergency/Medical information
  • All students must have an emergency contact with the emergency contact's phone and address information populated.
• Review Modify Information
  • Verify School Entry Date and School Entry Grade Level (used by Historical File).
• Review Parents/Guardian information
  • Verify all students have Parents and Guardian Information populated.
  • NOTE: populate Parent/Guardian Military Indicator for students whose parent or guardian is in the military.
• Review State/Province – MS > Mississippi State Information
  
  • Updating Student Indicators that have changed since last school year. Example... student is no longer LEP.
  • Verify all students have a Transportation Information populated (TransportCode).
  • Verify all students have Birth State populated (BirthState).
  • Update Peer Grade Level information for all SPED students (PeerGradelvl).
  • Review Title I information for Title I eligible students.
    • NEW: Populate Title I Foster Care Indicator for applicable students.
  • Review Vocational/Technical information for applicable students.
  • Review Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC)
    • 17-18 is a reporting year. Update the CRDC Information page to reflect current 17-18 school year data for students.
• Enter state report-able Discipline Incidents on the student's Log Entries page.
• Review Student Class Schedules in All Enrollments
• Review school enrollments in Transfer Info
  • Verify students have a District of Residence. (DistrictOfResidence)
  • Verify Special/Secondary Grade Code information for applicable students (GradeCode).
  • Update Graduation Pathway information for 9-12 grade students (PathwayInd).

Run Validation/Verification Reports

• Before Month 1 reporting, run the Monthly Student Data report with the Bypass Validation option set to No.
  • Consult the Monthly Student Data portion of the State Reports Guide for information regarding report parameters.
• Before Months 1-9 reporting:
  • Use the Exclude Dropped Classes Function to exclude dropped section enrollments that should not be reported in the Monthly Student Data report.
  • Use the Attendance Reconciliation Report to clear up Attendance Discrepancies.