First Week - an update

Well, it's been a whole week since the CALPads system came online.  I'm trying my best to be calm and patient, because I know how difficult it is to change to a new system.  Also, the entire state is trying to access the site and run reports, which is very very resource intensive.  Also, I found myself clicking the "Extract" button more than once, because I didn't get any confirmation that it worked.  Later, I would receive three or four copies of the requested file.  I did this and I know better, if you can imagine how many people in the state made that mistake, and how many extra copies the database was processing, then you'll know that it's no wonder that CALPads was down most of the week. 

I was trying to SSID's (State Student Identifiers - CSIS numbers) for the 54 students in the district who needed them.  So far, through much effort in the wee hours while CALPads was running, I have been able to process and confirm all of the identifier requests.  Now, I just need the extract to compile in CALPads, and make it available for me to download.  From there, I just pull it into Aeries.  But, CALPads is down, so far all morning.

The problem is, that I need to submit an enrollment update, which contains most of the student info; grades, discipline, demographic, courses, attendance, programs, and enter/exit dates and reasons.  This is due on last WEdnesday, CBEDS day, for an initial upload.  But, I would lose 54 students in our counts since they don't have identifiers.  So you see my conundrum. 

Anyhoo, I'll just keep plugging away!  I especially hope to get the identifier file downloaded, though, so that the high school students can finally have a gradebook (which is attached by CSIS id).  We all have our dreams!

CALPADS Flowchart - easy to see and understand

CALPads: the second day

Yesterday I submitted for new id's for RUSD. There are 54 students who needed identifiers, but only 1 made it through the verification. So, I generated a report in CALPads, which took a few hours to finish. then i downloaded it and put it into Aeries, who have kindly given us a utility. It compares the file from CALPads, which contains all the students that were converted from CSIS, to what we have in Aeries. It will tell me the problems with the records. But its too big. I need to try again today and break the files into smaller pieces so I don't bring Aeries down two days in a row. BTW, if you are still reading, thanks for your patience while I updated Aeries yesterday!