BDS Online School Registration FAQ

Transcription

1 General BDS Online School Registration FAQ 1. Why are we going to an online school registration process? Availability of critical information, quality of information, up- to- date information, improved communication, better resource management, time and money savings When parents enroll their students online, the information is saved directly into the database, saving so many work hours. There is no processing delay and the information is instantly available to all who have access. All parents will be required to have an address to register their child for school through Parent Portal. Having an address for every Bay District parent will help to improve the flow of communication between parents, students and teachers. An online student enrollment system provides real- time counts on the number of students enrolled by school, grade, and course. Online registration also saves on paper, printing, and postage, not to mention costs associated with data entry and other errors common with a manual registration system. Focus has the capability for online registration. When BDS made the transition from AS400 to FOCUS the intent was always to move to online registration at some point. Bay District had a disconnect in that we have an electronic student management system but were still using a paper- based enrollment system. Switching to an online student enrollment and registration system is the obvious next step for Bay District. Why now? The military families who are being reassigned from New Mexico to Panama City will begin arriving in October. They needed a way to do online registration since they are not physically present to do manual registration. The district needed a way to look at the impact of the military families on projected student enrollment. Online registration is the solution. 2. New!: Which parents are supposed to register online? All K- 12 parents who will have students enrolled with BDS during the school must complete the online registration application. The online application is replacing the paper registration cards. 3. New!: What does a parent need to do to be able to access the online registration application? All BDS K- 12 parents must be registered for Parent Portal to access the online registration application. 4. Why are we doing school registration at a central location? The schools are understaffed during the summer and the online registration is a new process. The Registration Center will assist the schools during the summer months with school registration. 5. What are the hours of operation for the School Registration Center and where is it located? The School Registration Center will be open Monday through Thursday from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm. The School Registration Center will be closed during the week of July 4 th. The School Registration Center is in the Nelson Building, Room 415. Parents entering the building for registration purposes MUST comply with the photo identification requirement of any Nelson Building visitor. A Student Services representative will be sent to the lobby in unusual situations. Is this for summer months only? We are exploring the possibility of having the Registration Center open through September 6. Parents would be able to register either at the school or at the Registration Center. More info soon

2 6. Who is supposed to go to the Registration Center? Parents who are enrolling their child with Bay District Schools for the first time (kindergarten or new to Bay District) should go to the Registration Center. 7. What is the School Registration Center responsible for? The Registration Center will do verification of the required registration documents and will assist parents in obtaining a Google account, signing up for Parent Portal and completing the online school registration. Any necessary follow up will be completed by the school. 8. How many people will be staffing the registration center? Two Student Services employees are assigned to the School Registration Center for summer registration. Additional Student Services staff has been trained in the school registration process and will be available to assist during peak times. 9. Is Pre- K affected by the new online school registration process? Pre- K is not affected by the new online school registration process. This is for kindergarten through 12 th grade. 10. Why has this happened so fast? The military families who are being reassigned from New Mexico to Panama City will begin arriving in October. It is the Superintendent s goal that this be a seamless process. These families needed a way to do online registration since they are not physically present to do manual registration. Transitioning all students to an online student enrollment process is the obvious next step in moving BDS toward and entirely paperless registration process. Required Documentation for School Registration 11. How is the School Registration Center going to get the required documents to the school sites? The School Registration Center staff will review the required documentation: Driver s License, the 2 proofs of address and the birth certificate. The documents will be placed in a Registration Folder. The parent will be directed to take the Registration Folder, with the required documentation, to the school as a part of the registration process. While at the school the parent should receive school specific information packets, credit checks for course/grade placement and resulting student schedules. Parents will be asked to share custody documents and details on medical conditions at that time. 12. If the data clerk is not working this summer, who are we sending the scanned information to? Each school has already provided a summer POC, to Kelly Lightsey, for School Choice. School Choice is a part of the school registration process. 13. The school has to have the original shot record (Form 680) in the CUM file (per Kathy Soto, Health Dept). How is the school going to get it? Shot records are audited for KG & 7 th graders. Parents/Guardians will take the Registration Folder containing the original shot record (Form 680) to the school as the final step of the registration process. 14. Who follows through on obtaining the physicals? The Registration Center will assist parents in obtaining a Google account, signing up for Parent Portal, doing verification on the required registration documents and completing the online school registration. Any necessary follow up will be completed by the school.

3 What is the process at the School Registration Center? 15. Who will be responsible for entering the immunizations information in FOCUS when parents register? Immunization information will continue to be entered into Focus by the school site staff. 16. Are we asking questions when they register about ESOL, ESE, IEP, 504, special needs, homeless, previous school information, custody info, contacts, etc. Yes. The parent will be required to complete basic fields in all of those areas. School site personnel will have student specific conversation with the parent when they arrive on your campus. 17. When will clerks be able to see the registration card information online? Immediately. Data clerks will receive a Portal Alert notification (located on the FOCUS home page) that shows the number of newly registered students. You will be able to access the student school registration information immediately. 18. When will the schools be able to give parents the school specific information packets, complete credit checks, and create student schedules? Once central registration is complete, students and parents will be directed to their school to receive school specific information packets, receive credit checks for course/grade placement and resulting student schedules. Parents will be asked to share custody documents and details on medical conditions. 19. What about transportation? When will parents receive their bus schedule and bus number information? Once central registration is complete, students and parents will be directed to their school to receive school specific information such as bus schedule and number. 20. Will the online registration be available in Spanish? A Spanish version will be made available as soon as possible. For questions or concerns, please contact Wendy Lanton or Sally Gentilli. 21. Why were data clerks data clerks not included in the development of the online registration process? A sample of data clerks from all levels have and are being consulted through the development of this process. 22. What if FOCUS goes down and the emergency contact information is not available? As has been emergency procedure in the past, schools will need to print a hard copy of the emergency contact information. Periodic reprints of student files which have been edited (you will receive notification on your FOCUS homepage of edited files) will insure that your paper copies remain current. 23. How is registration going to be handled once school starts? We are exploring the possibility of having the Registration Center open through September 6. Parents would be able to register at the school or at the Registration Center. This procedure will help alleviate some of the burden on schools due to the volume of enrollments at the beginning of the school year. More info soon All existing families with a current student ID number and Parent Portal access can register /update their information at ANY computer station even at HOME. This information went home with students on the last day of school. 24. Is this an elementary issue only? No. The online registration is for all BDS K- 12.

4 Custody 25. How are schools going to know they are who they say they are and have the right to register the child? Address verification? The School Registration Center staff will review the required documentation: Driver s License, the 2 proofs of address and the birth certificate. Social Security card, if the parent provides it. The documents will be placed in a Registration Folder. The parent will be directed to take the Registration Folder to the school as a part of the registration process. Just as with traditional paper registration, driver s licenses will be compared to birth certificates. 26. According to Board Policy, only the person who enrolled the child can withdraw the child. How will we know who enrolled the child? School site personnel will view the User>Add a User>Job Title Code field. The person who enrolled the child will be coded with a 1. If that person changes, the 1 will be removed from that user and added to the new primary user that you create. 27. How do we determine who has residential custody of the student and who authorizes contact if both parents/grandparents have their own account on Parent Portal? Enrollment is tied to FOCUS. Custody notes and icons can be viewed on the student s Address tab. Again, the residential custody will be identified by a 1 being coded in the User>Add a User>Job Title Code field. 28. How will the schools know who to request records from? (previous school information) The prior school information is a part of the required fields that parents must complete online. NEW! Application Fields 29. Why won t the Parent Contact field accept information when parents try to input? The contacts section of the "application" is currently not functioning. The contacts cannot be entered for new students nor can existing contacts for current students be edited. BDS MIS and FOCUS are working on this issue. In the meantime, the Registration Center will have parents include the emergency contact information on the back of the pre- registration form and place it in the folder that they are bringing to your school for you to input. (See attached) This will be corrected asap. 30. What if some of our parents are uncomfortable releasing their Social Security Number? This is an optional field. Parents may proceed through completion without filling this number in. Entering a Social Security Number is important to us for several reasons. Certification for free/reduced lunch, FHSAA athletic certification, Bright Futures, FCAT pre- ID, etc are just a few of the tasks that require social security numbers. BDS requires the same level of security, SSL encryption of data, as your bank uses. 31. What happened to the multi- racial field? Per Federal guidelines, state requirements were changed. The category of "multi- racial" was eliminated. Parents and clerks must respond to the required supplied fields as written. A parent should click on all race fields that apply. 32. If the parent does not need to make any changes to the information in Parent Portal, what should they do? The parent should review the information to verify it is correct. Then click on the button on the top right, Submit Requests. That completes the registration.

5 33. How do you do School Choice on the online registration? In the online application there is a section for the parent to type in a 1 st, 2 nd, and 3 rd School Choice request. When the parent clicks on the button on the top right, Submit Requests, the School Choice request is electronically sent to the BDS School Choice department. It will take approximately 3-5 days to process the request. The parent will see a message, in red, on the online application that says, Pending Verification. The School Choice Department will contact the parent to notify them about the status of the request. If the student is attending their zoned school the parent should skip the School Choice section on the online application.