Contact: Chris Gauldin
866-847-3405 x110
cgauldin@common-goal.com

For Immediate release

May 2015 Product Release

Common Goal Systems, a leading developer of cloud-based software for schools, announces several enhancements to TeacherEase and SchoolInsight. TeacherEase is software for the digital classroom and SchoolInsight is a comprehensive student information system.

The new functionality includes:

Yearly Course Standards.  For many customers, standards-based education is still a new process that requires iteration and improvement.  In an effort to make this easier, we now allow course standards to be configured yearly.  Customers can now adjust the standards for next year without affecting previous year’s standards or standards-based grades.

[District] Admin Main > Course Catalog > standards

Grading Period Standards.  Often as the year progresses, the curricula will focus on different standards. Standards can now be assigned grading period(s), and by default only current grading periods’ standards show on report cards (in the new “course-based report cards” mode only). When teachers create assignments, lessons, or units, current standards appear by default and are easier to select -- teachers are free to view all standards and select any of them. This saves teachers time and helps them choose the relevant standards.  Customers often want only current standards to show on report cards.  Support for this is coming soon.

[District] Admin Main > Course Catalog > standards > Mass Edit Standard Items

High School Scheduling Improvements.  We’ve made some big improvements to scheduling for schools that have one or two cycle days -- typically high schools with the same schedule every day or an A/B cycle.  When viewing a student’s schedule, the graphical schedule can now show the entire year on one page (in the past you could only view one grading period at a time).  This default is now to use the graphical schedule and show all grading periods.  This gives admins a better view of a student’s schedule.

Better Handle Schedule Changes in Grade Reporting.  Scheduling changes for the upcoming grading period are now handled more seamlessly when completing report cards.  When entering report card grades, the last day of the marking period is used to calculate which students need grades (rather than the current date). Students who exited a class on the last day of the grading period are now considered active for entering report card grades. Students who enter a class after the last day of the grading period no longer are active for entering report card grades.  This was an oversight on our part and has been resolved.

Optional Daily Periods.  Daily periods for tracking zero-hour or after-school programs can now be made optional.  This change will improve the fidelity of “schedule compete” for students. The “Find Unscheduled Students” report will not consider optional periods when determining if a student’s schedule is complete.

Admin Main > Scheduling > Bell Schedules > daily periods

Admin Main > Scheduling > Find Unscheduled Students

Online Registration Fees.  Online Registration now allows parents to pay all of their new year fees as part of the registration process.

Online Payment Reconciliation.  We have increased the amount of data we pass along with online payments. This will allow schools to more easily reconcile their Authorize.net statements with transactions in SchoolInsight.

WISEdata.  For Wisconsin customers, SchoolInsight has committed to compliance with the new WISEdata standards. With this release we are up-to-date with all current WISEdata requirements.

Admin Main > Import/Export > Export WISEdata Files

Admin Main > Import/Export > Import WISEdata Files

- Common Goal Systems, Inc Press Release, 5/14/2015