[schooltool-dev] some future features...

[Tom Hoffman]

fyi

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Algot Runeman <algot.runeman at verizon.net>
Date: Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 5:33 AM
Subject: Re: Intro message
To: Tom Hoffman <tom.hoffman at gmail.com>


Tom,

Glad to help any way I can.

Opening up the ID in demographics is good. Better would be a (edit
hidden, but possible) method by which the incoming students are
automatically assigned a "next in sequence" ID. The editing step
should deal with the odd student who is returning to the district
after being in some other place for a year or more. We had that
situation frequently as students went off to private high schools from
our eighth grade class only to return in the 10th, for example. Those
returning students needed to be reassigned the same ID they had when
in the eighth grade.

A query against archived data to determine if a state ID match existed
could flag students who need ID editing (This ID checking step was NOT
in any of the three systems I used -- The School System, Nordex and
Rediker).

One relatively simple auto assignment is to use the full year of grad
plus an increment so a student might be 20120079. Allowing the
district to set the number of digits in the second part to best fit
their need. A city like Boston or Providence might need more digits
while a small town might only need three. The decision about number of
digits would work best if made in the initial setup of the system in a
district. Note that the ID would not change if a student failed a
grade. A different data field would keep track of the current grade
level.

Speaking of grade level, a method for automatically updating students
from one year to the next was a convenient step in Rediker. It
involved transferring all the stable data, but wiping fields like
attendance, current year grades,  etc.  We had one secretary at each
building whose job included data maintenance and could edit the fields
that were stable but had changing data.

Another very convenient tool in Rediker was the ability to do block
updates of data. Selecting a group of students, Rediker presented a
series of screens with the data fields and allowed the qualified staff
to make wholesale data changes for the selection. Blanking a field was
possible as was entering a new value that would overwrite the current
data of a field for all of the selected students.

The major drawback of Rediker was the data structure. It was
essentially a large file with a row for each student. Any change
needed to move sequentially through the file to the right row and
column. Some updates were very time consuming. The same was true for
gathering data for reports, even though that was faster because it was
a read operation instead of write, the data all had to be run through
the filtering process for complicated data extraction.

For efficiency, a solid indexed (relational?) database needs to be the
back end of the system.

The most problematic fields were the ones dealing with special
education status. It was critical that they were accurate because of
the state funding formulas. I spent more time verifying SPED data than
on anything else in the weeks ahead of data submission to the state.

Enough for now.
--Algot


Tom Hoffman wrote:
>
> Hi Algot,
>
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 3:05 PM, Algot Runeman
> <algot.runeman at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>  I'm not actually familiar with Mass. specifically (after all, it takes
> almost twenty minutes to get to the border from here), but we just
> added customizable demographics that lets an individual school add
> whatever they need as far as ID's.
>
> Thanks for your feedback!  Actually, with your experience you can
> probably also give us some advice on the specific reports
> administrators will want to see as pdf's or web pages.  We're kind of
> waiting for requests before we start guessing what reports people will
> want.
>
>

--
-------------------------
Algot Runeman
47 Walnut Street, Natick MA 01760
508-655-8399
algot.runeman at verizon.net
Web Site: http://www.runeman.org
Open Source Blog: http://mosssig.wordpress.com