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Online course request setup

Using PowerSchool's parent/student portal, ParentCONNECTxp™, a student can request particular courses for her schedule, and a parent can approve that online course requests [>>], if such approval is required. These requests are transferred to PowerSchool SMS, in which a counselor can review a student's course requests and, on a system where approval is required, approve or reject each request [>>].

Note: For those district that want to use HTTPS, a single self-signed certificate is required for HTTPS communications with PowerSchool SMS and, because the default web.config file in PowerSchool SMS is configured to support HTTP, you will need to configure the online course request web.config file for HTTPS. For further information, see the ParentCONNECTxp Installation and Setup Guide.

The District Administrator and the School Administrator are both involved in setting up online course requests for a school.

District Administrator tasks:

School Administrator tasks:

Note: If academic plans are not in use, ensure that for the teacher and counselor roles, the Student Academic Plan permission [>>] is set to Edit or Delete.

We highly recommend the use of academic plans to support online course requests. PowerSchool SMS uses the academic plan assigned to a student to filter the list of courses available to request and to provide the Student Academic Plan Progress Report [>>] to ParentCONNECTxp.

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Provide the school's parents and students with access to the school's ParentCONNECTxp web site. Refer to the ParentCONNECTxp Administrator's Guide.

Notes: If necessary, the administrator can configure ParentCONNECTxp in such a way as to restrict students and parents to working only with course requests. Since on a ParentCONNECTxp web site, the online course request section is at the URL "https://[SchoolName]ParentCONNECTxp/OCR", the administrator can create direct links to it from other school sites.

Table 103: Permissions pertaining to online course request setup

Enabling online course requests

The School Administrator has the option to enable students to submit course requests via ParentCONNECTxp. Once the administrator enables students to submit requests, she has the option of requiring counselor and/or parent approval for those requests. Caution: The administrator cannot change these options if an online course request submission period is active (that is, the current date is a date falling between the Availability date and the Submission end date for any grade level [Figure 405]).

To enable online course requests:You can do this if your role is School Administrator. [SA]

1

In the Planning Calendar [>>], in the Admin menu, click School Setup. The School Setup page appears.

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Click Online Course Request Setup. The Online Course Setup page appears [Figure 405].

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Select Allow students to use the Online Course Request System.

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Set options according to the school's policy:

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Counselor approval required: A counselor must approve [>>] a student's course requests before PowerSchool SMS publishes them to that student's planning schedule [>>].

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Guardian/parent approval required: A parent or guardian must approve a student's course request before ParentCONNECTxp transfers it to PowerSchool SMS.

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Click Apply or OK.

Configuring a grade level for online course requests

Once the school administrator has enabled online course requests for a school [>>], he can decide which grade levels to include and configure each separately. Note: PowerSchool SMS excludes all grade levels when a District Administrator creates a District Planning Calendar.

To configure a grade level for online course requests: You can do this if your role is School Administrator.[SA]

1

In the Planning Calendar [>>], in the Admin menu, click School Setup. The School Setup page appears. Note: To work in the Planning Calendar, the Access to Planning Calendar permission must be set to Yes [>>].

2

Click Online Course Request Setup. The Online Course Setup page appears [Figure 405].

3

Under Grade Level Settings, for the grade level, set options, which include:

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Grade level: The projected grade level [>>] for students currently enrolled (in the Active Calendar), that is, the grade level into which the student is expected to advance in the next year.

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Include: Determines if courses in this grade level are subject to student requests.

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Availability date and Submission end date define the period, or submission window, during which a student in the grade level can enter his course requests.

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The dates must fall within the active calendar.

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Teachers and counselors must make all their course recommendations [>>] before this date. Note: If this date is current or past, PowerSchool SMS locks the fields in that particular grade level row. This date is the start of the student submission window. Note: PowerSchool SMS displays in green any change the administrator makes to this grid until he saves the page.

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Allow override of teacher recommendations: Determines if a student can override a teacher or counselor's recommendation [>>] for a required or elective course.

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Allow override of counselor recommendations: Determines if a student can override a counselor's recommendation [>>] for a required or elective course.

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Scheduling Load: The minimum and maximum scheduling load for a student expressed in terms of hours per day (between 0.01 and 99.99).

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Allow alternate for required course: Determines if a student can select an alternate to a required course.

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Maximum alternates for electives: Defines the number of alternates to elective courses that a student can request (between 0 and 99).

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Maximum study halls: This field defines the number of study halls (typically a period of self-directed study) that a student can select for the year. Valid values are 0–99. A study hall selected as an alternate course does not count against this maximum.

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Allow active & completed courses: Determines if a student can request a course for which she has received prior credit or in which she is currently enrolled. This is particularly useful in a school on a semester system.

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Grade level instructions: Enables the administrator to write instructions for students projected to enter this grade level; for example, "In Grade 9, the student must take one Math course, one Social Studies, and English". ParentCONNECTxp displays these instructions on the Online Course Request web site and in the Course Plan area. Click the icon to enter instructions up to 4000 characters in length. Where instructions are recorded, the icon appears darker than otherwise. Note: ParentCONNECTxp displays the instructions as plain text; HTML formatting tags have no effect.

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Online course catalog link: Enables the administrator to enter a link to the school's online course catalog. This link is displayed on the Online Course Request web site. Click the icon to enter a URL; use Test to open the URL in a web browser.

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Click Apply or OK.

Figure 405: Online Course Request Setup page

Requiring counselor approval to publish online course requests

When the School Administrator has set the Counselor approval required option for a school [>>] and a student submits a course request, PowerSchool SMS flags the request as waiting for counselor and publishes it to the student's planning schedule. The administrator has the option of having PowerSchool SMS wait to publish the course requests until a counselor approves the request [>>]. The administrator can do this for each grade level. Caution: When the administrator sets this option for a grade level, PowerSchool SMS locks that grade level's row on the Online Course Request Setup page [Figure 405].

To force approval of course requests for a grade level: You can do this if your role is School Administrator.[SA]

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In ParentCONNECTxp's Administration Application (Admin App), ensure that the pending course requests have been pushed to the school's PowerSchool SMS system (refer to the School Maintenance screen).

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In PowerSchool SMS, in the Planning Calendar [>>], in the Admin menu, click School Setup. The School Setup page appears.

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Click Force Request Approval. The Force Course Request Approval page appears [Figure 406].

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Under Grade Level, select the grade level for which to force approvals.

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In the Actions menu, select Force Course Request Approval.

Figure 406: Force Course Request Approval page

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