How do I create the School Term file for the Summer 2014 MiSiS upload?

For this file of the LAUSD-required MiSiS upload, Charter Schools will typically find the necessary data stored in your SIS IF they have already rolled over their SIS to the 2014-2015 school year.  If not, then the information should be easy enough to manually create an Excel file.

Let’s start with a short overview of what is required and then process through the “how to” create the simple files.

School Term Information–Overview

*This information is based on the specifications released by the Charter Schools Division on July 9th, 2014.

File Requirements:

• Column A:   LocationCode
• Column B:   TermName
• Column C:   SchoolYear
• Column D:   TermTypeCode
• Column E:   TermNumber
• Column F:   StartDate
• Column G:   EndDate

How to Create the Files

Even if you have created your new school calendar and set up your SIS for 2014-2015, we recommend creating this file manually.  Of the supporting documents provided by LAUSD, we will focus on the file titled:  SchoolTermExpectedValues.xlsx

Step 1:  Open a new MS Excel workbook.

Step 2:  Create column headers for the fields listed in bold from the file requirements above.

Step 3: Insert information into the rows of each column that meets your school’s needs.

• LocationCode
  • Insert the District-provided code that is specific to your school.  If you do not know, ask the school leader what code was provided by LAUSD.
• TermName
  • Some of the most common values are listed below and can be named as your school finds appropriate.
    • Full Year
    • First Semester
    • Second Semester
    • First Quarter
    • Second Quarter
    • Third Quarter
    • Fourth Quarter
    • First Trimester
    • Second Trimester
    • Third Trimester
• SchoolYear
  • The current school year will be 2014-2015, therefore, type this into the first cell of that column and copy/paste as needed
• TermTypeCode
  • Some of the most common values are listed below but a complete list can be found in the “TermType” tab of the SchoolTermExpectedValues.xlsx file.
    • FY=Full Year
    • S1=First Semester
    • S2=Second Semester
    • Q1=First Quarter
    • Q2=Second Quarter
    • Q3=Third Quarter
    • Q4=Fourth Quarter
    • T1=First Trimester
    • T2=Second Trimester
    • T3=Third Trimester
• TermNumber
  • This number will follow the order of the smallest term from earliest to latest.  (Ex:  1, 2, 3, etc.)
  • Examples:
    • Q1=1
    • Q2=2
    • Q3=3
    • Q4=4
• StartDate
  • Ensure that the date is in YYYYMMDD format.
• EndDate
  • Ensure that the date is in YYYYMMDD format.

Voila!  With your school’s calendar in hand and the LAUSD reference file your SchoolTerm.csv file should be very easily completed.

Step 4:  Save the file as SchoolTerm.csv.

Use the File: Save As function in order to properly name and choose the type of file you need.  In this case, the default .xlsx from Excel is not the manner in which the district requires the data.  Choose the .csv file type to ensure LAUSD is able to properly load your school’s information.

Good Luck!