Post-Year-End Processing in the Student Management Suite

Sarah Paul

by Sarah Paul

Sarah Paul Product Specialist Manager

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Congratulations—you’ve finished pre-year-end planning and your year-end process! Take a deep breath, enjoy a bit of relaxation, and set yourself up for success in the next school year with these post-year-end Skyward tips.

Just like pre-year-end planning, getting into a routine of planning for the next school year over the summer can save a great deal of time and energy. Rather than scrambling later, let’s take a look at the post-year-end review and look ahead to the next school year now.

We’ll split this into a two-part process:

Reviewing the previous year’s data
Preparing for your next school year

Post-Processing Review

Immediately after year-end processing:

1. Unlock Skyward (and your brand-new school year) using the same credentials used to lock the system.

2. Follow the post-year-end checklist in SkyDoc to run validation reports and clean up any errors.

3. Your district may have some specific post-year-end processes you've identified. Here are a few examples:

Lock access to Educator Access Plus, Student Access, or Family Access (note this may be done at the entity level, so check them off one by one)
Change security groups
Change administrator names
Change effective years for health records
Print any updated paper copies kept at building level
Match incoming high school freshmen with counselors
Adjust transportation records
Review attendance days and weekends for substitute calendars
Review professional development days
Remove inactivated building staff
Clone gradebooks at each entity
Purge records or send permanent records to new buildings
Update district contacts in the system

Planning for Next Year

It's never too early to start planning for the new school year. The better you're prepared, the smoother the first day of school will go for staff, students, and teachers. You'll find out earlier if you need support from Skyward.

Click the link below to view the official First Day of School checklist in SkyDoc. Tasks are split into seven categories:

Attendance
Demographics
Food Service
Gradebooks
Grading
Health Records
Scheduling

↪ See the First Day of School checklist in SkyDoc.

Double-check all tasks as you complete them for each entity in your district. You may want to focus on completing all tasks for a single entity, then move on and start the list again, so you’re not jumping back and forth in the system.

Wrapping Up

Some of the lists involved in year-end processing may take several days to complete, but the preparation is worth the effort. Keep up communication with stakeholders as you get closer to locking out the system to process the year end in Skyward. With careful planning, the process should go a little smoother for everyone.

School may be out for summer, but IT administrators stay busy as ever. We hope this series can help you stay organized, too!

Follow-up Resource: Download a PDF Checklist

Want to save a copy of the steps outlined in this series on ending the school year in Skyward? Here's a PDF version you can use to begin your tailored year-end process for your unique district.