[Applies to secondary schools only.]
You run current year GPA calculations and cumulative GPA calculations from the same page. Before you run the cumulative GPA calculation, ensure student historical data has been entered. For further information, see Student historical transcript information [>>].
If your district has defined GPA/class rank reporting terms and you have assigned them to report card grading periods at your school, when you run the cumulative GPA calculation, PowerSchool SMS calculates end-of-term GPAs and cumulative-to-end-of-term GPAs.
GPA calculations are run as a background task. When the task is complete, an alert message is sent to the user who initiated the task. The alert message indicates whether the task was successful. This message includes the number of suspect cumulative GPAs, the number of students processed, the number of GPA definitions processed, the length of time the task took, and when it was completed. If GPA results were not successfully calculated or if a GPA is suspect, this message also displays the reason. For more information about working with alerts, see Alerts [>>].
A GPA result is considered suspect if it meets either of the following conditions:
| = | The cumulative GPA (or, if your district is set up to use term GPAs, the cumulative-to-end-of-term GPA) is calculated from historical yearly GPAs and at least one historical GPA is missing. |
| = | The student meets both the following conditions: |
| = | The student is in a grade level higher than the Start from grade level specified on the Add/Edit Cumulative GPA page. |
| = | The student does not have any historical data with an overall cumulative GPA or yearly GPA. |
The number of suspect GPAs includes all cumulative GPA definitions that are suspect. For example, if you set up one weighted and one unweighted cumulative GPA definition, and a student meets the suspect criteria for both GPA definitions, then that student is listed twice. Therefore, you might have a higher number of suspect cumulative GPAs than the total number of students.
For more information about how GPAs are defined, see About Grade Point Averages [>>].
Note: Unlike other grading calculations, GPA calculations cannot be overridden.
Before you run your grading calculations, enter or import information about student's performance in past years, including courses and grades. Student historical grades are used in cumulative GPA calculations.
Historical transcript data for secondary students is used by PowerSchool SMS when calculating cumulative GPAs or, if your district calculates GPAs by term, when calculating cumulative-to-end-of-term-GPAs. Before you run cumulative GPA calculations, it's important to ensure that historical data has been entered.
You can enter three types of historical transcript information:
| = | Summary information about all past school years, such as the student's cumulative GPA, weighted and unweighted GPAs by term, total absences, total points, total credits, and so on. You enter summary information about the main Historical page under Graduation Information. |
| = | Information about a specific year, such as the student's school, credits and GPA that year, and class rank. You enter information about a specific year on the Add/Edit Historical Year page. |
| = | Information about the courses a student took in a specific year, such as the course name and number and the grade that the student received. You enter course information on the Add/Edit Historical Course page. You can see a list of all the courses for a specific year on the Historical Courses page. |
GPA/Class rank reporting terms enable schools to produce GPAs for district-defined time periods. A reporting term could be a semester, trimester, or other time period specified by the district.
The district sets up GPA/class rank reporting terms and then the schools in the district assign the terms to their report card grading periods with defined grade items.
If your district has defined GPA/class rank reporting terms and the reporting terms have been assigned to grading periods, when you run GPA calculations, PowerSchool SMS calculates term GPAs.
There are two types of term GPA calculations: end-of-term GPAs and cumulative-to-end-of-term GPAs. Both are cross-school calculations; that is, when a student is enrolled in more than one school in the district, the calculations include the student's grades in all schools.
| = | End-of-term GPA - This calculation includes only grade items associated with the GPA reporting term specified on the Grading Periods page. Historical grades are not used and future grades are not counted. In addition, the end-of-term GPA calculation uses the Use in Cum GPA setting from the Course Grading page for grade items. |
| = | Cumulative-to-end-of-term GPA - This calculation includes historical grades and uses the same formula as the year‑to‑date cumulative GPA calculation; however, for the current year portion of the formula, only the grade items for the grading periods associated with the GPA reporting term are included. A cumulative-to-end-of-term GPA provides a snapshot of a student's GPA at the end of a GPA reporting term. This is useful if you want, for example, to compare a student's cumulative GPA at the end of Semester 1 with their cumulative GPA at the end of Semester 2. As with end-of-term GPA calculations, future grades are not counted. |
When you run GPA calculations, the calculations include only the grade items specified in the grading period to which the GPA reporting term is assigned. Both term calculations use the formula defined for the cumulative GPA. For further information about the cumulative GPA formulas, see Working with cumulative GPAs [>>].
For information about assigning a district GPA reporting term to a grading period, see Grading periods and GPA/class rank reporting terms [>>].
When determining which grades to include in the calculation, current-year GPA calculations consider the Effective As Of setting, as well as the Grading Period selected on the Edit Current Year GPA page [Figure 77].
The following table summarizes how the Grading Period and Effective As Of settings affect the current-year GPA calculations:
|
Grading Period (Set on Edit Current Year GPA Page) |
Effective As Of (Set on Calculate Grades, Credits, and GPAs Page) |
Description |
|
Current Report Card Period |
Last Completed Report Card |
The calculation includes grades from only the last completed report card. For example, if you run the calculation in grading period 2, the calculation only includes grades from grading period 1. |
|
Current Report Card |
The calculation includes grades from only the current report card period. For example, if you run the calculation in grading period 2, the calculation only includes grades from grading period 2. |
|
|
Year-to-date |
Last Completed Report Card |
The calculation includes the grades up to and including the previous grading period. For example, if you run the calculation in grading period 3, the calculation includes the grades for grading periods 1 and 2. |
|
Current Report Card |
The calculations includes the grades up to and including the current grading period. For example, if you run the calculation in grading period 3, the calculation includes the grades for grading periods 1, 2, and 3. |
|
|
Report Card 1, Report Card 2, and so on |
Last Completed Report Card |
Setting ignored. |
|
Current Report Card |
Setting ignored. |
Figure 77: Contributing grading periods and items
By default, cumulative GPA calculations always include GPA values from student's historical records (except when a student has no historical record, in which case only current-year grades are used). To specify which of the student's current-year grades you want to include in the calculation, you select an option from Effective As Of [Figure 78]. If you select Last Completed Report Card, the calculation does not include the grades from the current reporting period.
For example, you run a cumulative GPA calculation during grading period 2. In the Effective As Of dropdown
| = | If you select Last completed report card grading period, the calculation includes historical GPA values and current-year grades up to grading period 1. Any grades entered in grading period 2 are ignored. |
| = | If you select Current report card grading period, the calculation includes grades up to and including grading period 2. |
Note: If your district calculates cumulative-to-end-of-term GPAs, the effective date functionality works exactly as it does for cumulative GPAs.
Figure 78: Effective period for GPAs
| A | If you select Last Completed Report Card, the calculation does not include the grades from the current reporting period. |
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