Secretary / Office Professionals

The responsibility of running the Office Application may be split between multiple people or a single person depending on the staffing at your school. This page organizes resources for you based on tasks to be completed throughout the school year. Click on the tab that describes the process you want to learn more about and the resources you need will then be available for you.

Use these instructional videos to learn how to use the office program

Office Intro One - Overview - Click here to view - A brief overview of the JMC program

Office Intro Two - Intro to Usernames and Passwords - Click here to view - Introduction to entering various usernames and passwords

Office Intro Three - Student Data and Enrollment - Click here to view - Learn how to work with the Edit Student Data screen and enter new students

Office Intro Four - Parents, Guardians, and Contacts - Click here to view - Learn how to put contacts in and attach them to students

Office Intro Five - Managing Data and Reports - Click here to view - Learn how to work with data and run basic reports

Office Intro Six - JMC Efficiency - Click here to view - Learn how work efficiently with JMC to save time

Office Intro Seven - Online Parent Portal - Click here to view - Learn how to manage the online portals

High School Scheduling Resources
Middle schools may also use this resource if they are buildig a High School style schedule

Six Stages of Master Schedule Building - Learn to build a master schedule in the JMC program. This document document will guide High Schools and Middle Schools, who have a HS style schedule, through the scheduling process. It has tools, tips, and steps for schools who build their master schedule by hand and those who use the Scheduling Aid to have JMC build their master schedule. Click the link below to download this document.
http://resources.jmcinc.com/uploads/files/Six_Stages_JMC_Scheduling.pdf

Schedules Module Comprehensive Documentation - This comprehensive document covers every page in the Schedules module. It also include the Six Stages of Master Schedule Building. Click the link below to download this document.
http://resources.jmcinc.com/uploads/files/NextGen_ScheduleDoc.pdf

Elementary/Middle School Resources
Where classes are primarily self-contained

Elementary and Middle School Scheduling Documentation  - This document will guide Elementary and Middle Schools through the scheduling process if the majority of their classes are self contained. This document is meant to be used in conjunction with the Elementary/MS Scheduling instructional video. Click the link below to download this document.
http://resources.jmcinc.com/uploads/files/NG_ElemMS%20Schedule.pdf

Click the link below to view the corresponding instructional video playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8v9ofhuRRaZVjypNEkPcuDZBUZkCkfNF

Daily Attendance

Daily Attendance can be run in two ways. The less common way is to have teachers write down morning and afternoon attendance on pieces of paper, send it to the office, and then an Office Professional records attendance information in the Attendance Module in Student: Enter Attendance. This method only allows for full-day and half-day attendance recording and no reasons can be attached to absences.

The most common way to run daily attendance is through the Period Attendance module. This allows teachers to enter in attendance, by period, for students in a web-based program from the computers in their classroom. This information is sent to the office electronically where an Office Professional can review it. The best way to learn how to run Period Attendance is to tatch the Period Attendance instructional video.  Click here to watch the Period Attendance instructional video. A simplified explanation of this process is as follows:

1. Before School Starts – An Office Professional records who will be absent from school based on parent/guardian phone calls in Period Attendance: Data: Edit Attendance.
2. After 1st Period Attendance Has Been Recorded – An Office Professional runs a report to see who was marked absent 1st period in Period Attendance: Reports: Lunch Count/Attendance by Teacher. Parents/guardians of students who are not in 1st period receive a call from the Office Professional. As reasons are given for student absences those reasons are recorded in Period Attendance: Data: Edit Attendance.
3. Throughout the Day – The Office Professional runs the Period Attendance: Reports: Day report to see who is missing from class.
4. End of the Day – Any reasons not yet entered in are entered in Period Attendance: Data: Edit Attendance. Also, the Office Professional may run a Period Attendance: Reports: Reason report for that day choosing reason 0 (zero). This report shows which students were absent for that day, or range of days, but no reason for an absence was given. This information is then used for a follow-up conversation with a parent/guardian or student.

Midterm Grading Choices

Typically schools send out some type of progress report midway through each term, called a Midterm Report. This can be done in one of the following two ways.

Midterm Report Card
The traditional way is to send home a midterm report card which has one grade and comment for each class, much like a regular report card. To accomplish this follow these steps:

  • Teachers, in their GradeBook, go to Scores: Assignment Scores and change the drop-down menu from “Current” to “Midterm” and enter the date for the Midterm. Then, after verifying that the midterm grades are correct they do a “Teacher to Office.” After they have sent their grades to the office they should go back into their Scores: Assignment Scores screen and change the drop down menu from “Midterm” back to “Current”.
  • An Office Professional goes to Grades: Entry: GradeBook Entry and retrieves the teachers grades choosing the term in which the midterm grades are being printed.
  • An Office Professional uses the Grades: Repots: Midterm Grade Report as a tool to verify that all grades have been entered or to provide a verification sheet for a particular teacher.
  • Midterm report cards are printed out by going to Grades: Reports: Midterm Report Cards.

Midterm Progress Reports
The vast majority of our schools use progress reports at the midterm. This allows parents/guardians to have a more in-depth view of a student’s progress. The other advantage to this is that a teacher can email the progress reports to parents directly. To accomplish this follow these steps: These instructions can be printed out with pictures by clicking here.

  • Teachers create one progress report for all of their classes. This is very important! They should not create one progress report for each class, but rather they should create one progress report and then in the “Progress Report Setup” screen choose each class and choose each student in that class. They also must choose a “Report Date” within the date range that you will be printing progress reports. After saving the progress report the Teacher goes to Reports: Send Progress Reports to Office and chooses the progress report they just created.

Note: If some progress reports are emailed, typically the teachers will create one progress report for students whose parents/guardians have email addresses and email the report directly from their IP GradeBook, and create another progress report for parents/guardians who do not have an email address and send those progress reports to the office to be printed.

  • An Office Professional then goes to Grades: Reports: Progress Reports and chooses the necessary date range and students to print and then prints the progress reports. Progress reports printed in the office will be collated by student.
  • After all progress reports have been printed, the Office Professional should go to Grades: Reports: Clear Progress Reports to remove those progress reports.

End of Term Report Cards

At the end of each grading term you can download and use the following document as a guide for printing report cards or use the dirctions below:

Click here to download Ending the Term - Office

Instructions for Printing End of Term Report Cards

Please Note: Steps 1 and 2 are typically only done before the first term report cards are printed.
                                                                                                                                                                                
1. Run a Course Grading Info Report in Schedules: Course: Course Data List. Choose the Course Grading Info in the Print Box.  Review the information listed in this report and edit it if necessary including Class:
- Weight    -Scaling     - When Grad Credit is Given   
- When the Class is include in the GPA    -Inclusion in the Honor Roll
- Included in the Report Card    -Grading Scheme
2. Review the Grade Values in Grades: Utilities: Edit Grade Values
                                                                                                                                                                              
3. Have Teachers send their grades to the office.  Have them download and use the “Ending the Term – Teacher” document if necessary available at http://jmcinc.com/teachers.
4. Bring Grades into the Office in Grades: Entry: GradeBook Entry.
5. Check to make sure all teachers have sent their grades into the office by running a Grade Distribution Report in Grades: Reports: Grade Distribution.  Choose the term you are printing of report cards for and the grade level.  This report will show how many grades for students in each class, grade level, and grades by teacher have been given.  If there are numbers under the “none” column it may mean a teacher has not sent some grades into the office.
6. If there are teachers who did not send their grades to the office repeat steps 3,4,and 5.
7. Print Standard JMC Report Cards in Grades: Reports: Report Cards.  Choose the Term, the students, GPA information, The Day # that this term ended on, Rank and Honor Roll, and Messages to print on report cards.
8. Print Elementary Standards and Benchmarks Report Cards in Standards and Benchmarks: Reports: Print Standards and Benchmarks Transcripts. Choose the students you want to print by grade level or advisor and then hit the Select Form button and choose the form that matches the students you are printing.
9. Print an Honor Roll Report in Grades: Reports: Honor Roll.
10. Print a Class Rank in Grades: Reports: Class Rank.
11.  If there are any questions about a students GPA run a Show GPA report in Grades: Utilities: Show GPA.  This report will show how a students GPA was calculated.
12. If you are using Online Parent Access go to File: Online Settings and choose the “Parent” tab to update your “Current Term” to the next term.
13. Before the teachers start sending grades to the office for the next grading term go to Grades: Utilities: Delete Comments. This will delete out all of the course comments teachers have sent to the office.

Rolling Over Students - Download the Getting Ready forms from the home page of your office program 

After mid January of the current school year you will need to send your database to JMC to “move up” or “roll over” your students for the next school year. Typically high schools will move up some time between January and April so they can start registering students and creating a master schedule for the upcoming school year. Since elementary and middle schools do not spend as much, if any, time registering students for electives they usually wait until the end of the school year to move up.

Please note the following about the move up process:

  • To start the move up process you must download the “Getting Ready” form. This form has directions on how to send us your database. This form will be available by January 4th.
  • Once your data has been sent to JMC please allow 3-5 days for it to be rolled over and sent back to you. If you have any questions about your move up after you have sent it into us, please contact us at JMC.
  • If you are running the District Application and you move up your high school before you move up the middle and elementary schools, when you move up the middle and elementary schools at a later date you will need to send us both the current year’s database and the high school database that has already been moved up.
Wrapping up the School Year

Wrapping up the school year is very easy. Complete the following steps:

1. Make sure all grades that have been sent to the office have been retrieved in Grades: Entry: TGE GradeBook Entry.
2. If you are using Transcripts, go to Grades: Transcripts: Bring (current year) Up To Date. This will move all of the Grades information into the Transcript folder.
3. Have the Technology Professional make a back-up of the current year’s Data Folder and store it for future reference.
4. Download the upcoming school year’s “Starting the School Year Checklist” and make sure you know all the steps you need to complete before the start of that school year.

Standards and Benchmarks

Use the resources below to learn how to effectively use standards and benchmarks

1. If you are new to the Elementary Report Card/Standards and Benchmarks process you can click here to view an elementary report card overview.

2. Use the Standards and Benchmarks instructional documentation to guide you through the necessary steps to complete elementary report cards.

    Pages 2-3 are office instructions for setting up report cards and bulk loading them to students.
    Pages 4-5 are instructions for printing report cards.
    Page 6 is a quickstart guide for teachers.
    Pages 7-10 are teacher instructions for completing report cards. Typically teachers who are new to elementary report cards in JMC use these instructions.
    Page 11 is a guide showing teachers how to send course grades to the office.
    Page 12 is a guide for teachers to print report cards.
    Pages 13-16 are teacher instructions for attaching assignments to Benchmarks to calculate results.

Click here to download the Standards and Benchmarks instructional documentation.

3. Teacher Resources can be found on the teacher page and here.

Comprehensive Instructional Videos
The Standards and Benchmarks GradeBook Comprehensive instructional video is the first step in learning how to complete elementary report cards through JMC. This instructional video is meant to be used in conjunction with the Standards and Benchmarks documentation below. Click here to view the Standards and Benchmarks GradeBook Comprehensive instructional video.

Elementary Report Card Quickstart Guide
If you are wanting a brief refresher of the Elementary Report Card process you can click here to watch the Elementary Report Card Quickstart instructional video.

Transcripts and Standardized Tests

Transcripts

Download the Grades documentation as a guide for working with Transcripts.

Standardized Tests
Before a Guidance Counselor works with Test Scores they must choose which Test Score they want displayed “On Screen,” meaning they will be displayed in the Office program for review, or “On Transcript,” which means they will be printed on a student’s transcript if that option is chosen when transcripts are printed. This step is completed in Grades: Transcripts: Test Score Selections. Standardized Test Scores can be:

  • Imported in bulk, if they have been given to you in a digital form, in Grades: Transcripts: Import Test Scores.
  • Entered manually in Grades: Transcripts: Edit Student Test Scores * Printed on student transcripts
  • Queried in Grades: Transcripts: Test Score Query or Attendance: Student: Lists.