Is Your Student Information System "Day One Ready"?
The first day of school is a pivotal moment. Beyond the excitement of new beginnings, it represents the culmination of months of planning and preparation. At EdOps, we believe a truly successful first day hinges on a critical concept: Day One Readiness of your school's data systems. We define “Day One Readiness” as the ability for teachers to take attendance for students who are enrolled in their classes. While this sounds like a straightforward goal, it's a powerful indicator that your operational systems are running smoothly, allowing your school to focus on student learning from the very first day. Achieving this requires that several critical components are in place within your Student Information System (SIS), including properly configured schedules and gradebooks, and ensuring all teachers and students are accurately accounted for.
Let's break down the four critical components of Day One Readiness and the questions you should be asking now to ensure a smooth start to the school year:
1. Teachers: Navigating the SIS with Confidence
In order to take attendance, teachers must be able to log in and use the SIS. This is a straightforward task if you have no teacher turnover, but we've yet to encounter a school in that situation. With new teachers joining your team this year, consider the following key questions:
How will you verify every teacher can log into the SIS and access student rosters before the first day of school?
How will you ensure all teachers understand key functions, like attendance submission, entering grades, and looking up contact information?
What's your contingency plan for rapidly onboarding and training new hires on SIS and attendance protocols leading up to and on the first day?
We typically recommend that the SIS Manager lead provisioning of log-ins for new teachers, and that new teacher onboarding include at least 30 minutes of hands-on training to confirm access and review the most critical functions in the SIS – even for teachers who are familiar with your particular system. Recording this session and creating a user-friendly step-by-step guide provides easy access to any staff who are hired after the start of year PD has occurred.
2. Attendance: More Than Just a Roll Call
In most cases, taking attendance in the SIS is not just a matter of checking boxes. Rather, it serves as critical communication that a student has safely arrived and is engaged in learning at your school. Missing or incorrect attendance records become harder to correct as time goes on, so it’s crucial to have systems integrated and processes established from the start. To check that you’re ready, ask yourself:
What is the timeline and responsible party for confirming the complete configuration of your SIS attendance module for the upcoming year?
If you’re using a separate attendance system, like one that scans IDs, how will you ensure seamless integration between your attendance system and other critical platforms (e.g., SIS, emergency notification systems) to prevent data silos and ensure real-time accuracy?
To support high-stakes compliance reporting and funding, what internal reporting and reconciliation processes have you established for the first week of school to quickly identify and correct any discrepancies in attendance data?
Who is responsible for verifying that every teacher has taken attendance and input it into the right portion of the SIS during the first week? How are you accounting for excused or unexcused absences and late arrivals?
Most attendance procedures are a dance between teachers and front office staff – establish firm cutoff-times and clear lines of communication to ensure all parties have a shared understanding of the roles and dependencies of capturing accurate attendance. Establishing this routine in the fall sets you up for a successful partnership between operations and teachers for the rest of the year.
3. Fully Enrolled Students: A Complete Picture
"Fully enrolled" means that every student's official enrollment status is accurately reflected in your SIS, with all necessary administrative, academic, and demographic details. This is rarely possible for every student by Day One given late registrations, but the questions below will help you to get close, and to manage any changes efficiently.
How will you proactively identify and address incomplete student enrollments or missing critical information in the weeks leading up to the first day, as data is migrated from the enrollment forms (both electronic and physical) into the SIS? Who will follow up with families to collect any missing information, and on what cadence?
What kind of auditing processes will be implemented to ensure the completeness of student enrollment data in the SIS throughout the first week of school, accounting for late registrations or changes?
Who is responsible for verifying residency? Who is responsible for verifying attendance and enrollment and changing student enrollment status from pre-registered (called Stage 4 in DC) and fully-enrolled (Stage 5)? If those are different people, how will they work together?
Collecting information from families is much easier at the beginning of the year, when everyone is already in the registration mindset. Having a critical list of what information is missing and sharing it with all staff who interact with families is key. You can proactively follow up with families via email, text, and phone calls before the first day of school. Additionally, consider setting up stations during orientation or back-to-school night for parents to drop off missing forms or verify changes in information.
4. In Their Classes: Organized and Safe Environments
Ensuring students are "in their classes" means the master schedule is finalized, students are appropriately placed, and, crucially, students can be located within the building in an emergency. You should have answers to these questions:
What is the final deadline for master schedule completion and student placement within the SIS?
Who is responsible for verifying the accuracy of every student's class assignments?
How will you share transcript information for newly enrolled students with staff responsible for scheduling students? How will this process change for students who enroll after the first day of school?
How will you communicate final student schedules to families and students? What is your process for managing and implementing last-minute schedule changes or student transfers that may occur in the days leading up to, and during, the first week of school?
Before finalizing the schedule, check that your classes are balanced, students have a complete schedule, and teachers have no conflicts. It's also worth revisiting these checks in the week leading up to school to account for any late enrollments or withdrawals.
Day One Readiness is the foundational pillar of a successful school year, ensuring that your team can focus on what matters most: your students. By proactively addressing these four critical components – teacher preparedness, attendance procedures, student enrollment, and master scheduling – you build a strong, reliable operational system from the ground up. This preparation not only prevents first-day chaos but also sets the tone for a year of streamlined operations and focused learning. If you're looking for expert guidance to navigate these complex systems or want to ensure your school is truly "Day One Ready," reach out to our team at EdOps. We're here to help you turn these best practices into your reality.
[Contributed by Laura Lund, Data Director]