Turning User Account Control (UAC) Off in Windows 7

We have had several problems recently when we were trying to install FTE Track on a user's machine in a GoToMeeting session, mainly because the target machine had User Account Control (UAC) turned on.

So, here is how you turn UAC off on a Windows 7 machine.

Click on Windows Start Button (ORB) and type in "User" in the search box, without quotes that is.

Select "Change User Account Control settings" under Control Panel group as shown in the picture above.
Then, bring the slider all the way to the bottom (Never notify), click OK and reboot your machine and you have successfully turned off UAC.

HOPE Track

HOPE Track s Dekstop based application that helps counselors/school IT folks preemptively clean data before they submit it to GA411college website.

It's much more effective than the official website and much more superior in terms of functionality and features.

You need to have Adobe AIR run-time installed first, then, download the zipped file from the link at the bottom of this post and unzip (you must unzip the file first) the file and just double-click on the file named HopeTrack.air and follow the prompts.

Special Ed (IDEA) and Suspension/Expulsion in Student Record data collection

With so many new rules added and several of the old rules updated with regards to Discipline incidents/actions reporting in Student Record for Special Ed Students, it's imperative that the Data Reporting/IT teams for districts work closely with their respective Special Education departments to ensure that the reporting of Out-of-School suspensions/Expulsions for Special Ed students is in line with the current Rules/guidelines by the DOE.



Here are a couple of examples of very specific rules :
Discipline Procedure for a student with an IEP

Reporting requirements for SWD students

Given all of these rules, there should be greater emphasis on accuracy of discipline data.
To help districts with that, we have added an "SWD" column to both Discipline Incident Details and Action Details reports with further drill-down capabilities to review list of such incidents/students by school and student lists by school. Screenshots follow:

Discipline Action Summary

Student Record App

Just like FteTrack, Student Record application also gives district users a head start in terms of error handling and reports.

But, it does so much more. Unique drill-down feature allows you to review and correct each and every data element in Student Record files.

We recommend districts start running Student Record extracts after the first month of school year and clean data year round, so that it doesn't become a monumental task in May and June, when schools are dealing with several year-end tasks like Report Cards, HOPE, CCRPI etc.

Installing Student Record application is simple, assuming you already are an FteTrack user, download the application archive and run the appropriate command file from an Administrator command window.

FteTrack Enhancements - Validations

As most of FteTrack users know, one of the numerous ways that FteTrack helps school districts maximize funding and ensure data quality, is by letting individual schools take ownership of their own data. An important built-in tool is the Validation button, whereby, school users can keep track of any data inconsistencies by validating records (along with optional comments).

One of the most requested feature enhancements is a way to tag students in the list by identifying the ones that somebody has looked at the details and validated by making sure that the validation warnings are legitimate/acceptable.

Now, when you are looking at the Student list for a particular Discrepancy report, you will see students who have been validated, clearly marked accordingly in the list. (See the picture below)

This change in included in version V20131230.

SpedMaximizer Enhancement - now pulls student schedules from FteTrack

Many of our current users have asked in the past if there was a way to show student schedules inside SpedMaximizer student details page.

Now, there is a way!

When you open SpedMaximizer next time, you should get update notification like this:

Go ahead and update the software. After you have updated the software and restart the application, you will get a popup window like the following:

Go ahead and enter the server name or ip address of the machine where FteTrack is installed. This the string between http:// and /FteTrack of the URL you use to login to FteTrack. For example, if you use the URL http://ushasoft-x237/FteTrack/index.php to login to fteTrack, you will enter ushasoft-x237 in the box above and press the Save button.

That's all that is needed for this to work. If you have entered the correct Server Name/IP, you should see student schedules as the picture below:

Comments/feedback welcome.

Leveraging Schedule Analysis for CCRPI

From Georgia DOE's CCRPI Indicators specifications, we can use Schedule Analysis to create reports for Middle and Elementary grades Predictor for High School Graduation using existing reports.

For Middle School, Grades 6-8

Middle School, Grades 6-8

For Elementary School, Grades K-5

Elem School, Grades K-5

According to the DOE's course file specifications 23.00170 is considered to be Reading/Grade 5 course.

In Schedule Analysis, you can easily identify students in grades 5 or 8 who may be missing one or more course in any of the required core content areas for High School Graduation predictors.

Schedule Analysis Main Page

Student List with # of Classes in Core Content Areas