1. From the Users menu, click Profiles.
2. Click the Permissions tab.
Select Menu as Permission Type, select Admin as Role, then select the applicable Profiles from the corresponding pull-down for users who should have access to PVAAS.
Click Submit.
3. From the Pennsylvania Reports section, select the View and Edit permission check boxes for Pennsylvania Reports Setup. This permission allows the user/profile to create cutoff dates for the subtests for the current school year.
4. From the Pennsylvania Reports section, select the View and Edit permission check boxes for PVAAS and Generate Student and Staff Subtest Data. This permission allows the user/profile to generate the initial PVAAS records. Generating the data overwrites all data for the district for the current school year.
See Profiles for more information.
Course
1. From the Scheduling menu, click Courses & Sections.
2. Click the Subject. Then, click the Course.
The following fields are used in either generating the extract or in the actual extract itself:
Title: Enter the name of the course.
Exclude from PIMS Reporting: Select the check box if this course should be ignored when creating PIMS course exports. You can check all of the courses that should be excluded and they will not appear in any PIMS exports. This is used for Homeroom and study hall courses.
Assessment Subtest 1: Select the test given for the course.
Assessment Subtest 2: Select a secondary test given for the course. When this field has a subtest assigned, the students in each section will have two records created for each subtest, for each teacher associated with the section. For example, Bob is a student in Math Gr8. This section has co-teachers, Miss Smith and Mr. Jones. This course also has two subtests assigned. When the PVAAS records are created, the following records are created for Bob:
| Student | Course | Subtest | Teacher | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bob | Math8 | PSSAM8 | Smith | 50 |
| Bob | Math8 | PSSAM8 | Jones | 50 |
| Bob | Math8 | Keylane Algebra | Smith | 50 |
| Bob | Math8 | Keylane Algebra | Jones | 50 |
The following fields should be considered as well:
State Course Code: Select the PA standardized course code that corresponds to the selected course. For dual enrollment courses, use the course code that best describes the content of the post-secondary course.
Honors: Select the check box if the course is an Advanced Academic course.
Required for Diploma: Select the check box if the course is required for a high school diploma.
Dual Credit: Select the check box if the alternate course code (state course code) is one of the six general dual enrollment course codes.
Advanced Placement: Select the check box if the course can make a student eligible for Advanced Placement credits for a post-secondary institution.
Career and Technical Indicator: Select the check box if this is a career and technical course.
Gifted Indicator: Select the check box if this course is intended for gifted students.
International Baccalaureate: Select the check box if this course is part of an international Baccalaureate program.
Exclude from EWS Reporting: Select the check box to ensure the EWS course, EWS course instructor, and EWS student course enrollment exports skip the course.
Course School: This field is designed to help out schools, who store more than one 'physical school' in a single School Code (e.g., both the Middle School and High School reside within the school pick list entry of school code 701). Under normal situations, you can simply leave this field blank and Focus will fill the appropriate school codes during the export process. Problems occur, when the same school code contains more than one school since you must report them separately and the Course School field ONLY needs to be filled in under that specific condition. This way, you can differentiate the courses taught at one location from those taught at another. Schools where one School Code equals one PA school, may leave this field blank and the school code will come from the School Information data.
Course Differentiator: Select the Course Differentiator to indicate when the course is offered:
Delivery Model: Select the code that signifies the method used to deliver instruction to the students in this course.
See Courses & Sections for more information.
Section
1. From the Scheduling menu, click Courses & Sections.
2. Click the Subject. Click the Course, then click the Section.
The Teacher field is used in either generating the extract or in the actual extract itself.
Teacher: Select the applicable teacher from the pull-down. It is very important that when replacing the primary teacher on a section, you enter the correct End Date. The date, by default, is set to the current date.
3. Click the Pennsylvania tab.
The following fields are used in either generating the extract or in the actual extract itself:
Teacher 1 Responsibility - Teacher 10 Responsibility:
For each teacher listed in the section and the Co-Teachers tab, enter the percentage of instruction for which the teacher is responsible. If no value is entered here, computed values will be applied when the percentages are required, dividing the responsibility evenly on the teachers. If there is an odd number of teachers, the teacher listed in the section gets an additional percentage point. For example, if there are three teachers (the teacher listed in the section, and two teachers listed in the Co-Teacher tab) and the Teacher Responsibility fields for all three are left blank, the following percentages will be generated:
Teacher 1 Responsibility: 34
Teacher 2 Responsibility: 33
Teacher 3 Responsibility: 33
For a non-primary teacher that works with a small percentage of the class, use a percent responsibility of 999. The system will create a record for each student for each teacher. The primary teacher’s percent for each student will be set to 100. The second teacher’s percent for each student will be set to 0. This will require a manual edit for those students who work with the second teacher.
If a person is listed in the co-teacher tab, but should not be reported in PVAAS, set the corresponding Teacher Responsibility percent to zero. The first teacher listed in the Co-Teacher tab is Teacher 2.
Assessment Subtest 1: Select the subtest for the section only if it is different than what is set in the course.
Assessment Subtest 2: Select the secondary subtest for the section only if it is different than what is set in the course. When this field has a subtest assigned, the students in each section will have two records created, one for each subtest, for each teacher associated with the section. For example, Bob is a student in Math Gr8. This section has co-teachers, Miss Smith and Mr. Jones. This course also has two subtests assigned. When the PVAAS records are created, the following records are created for Bob:
| Student | Course | Subtest | Teacher | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bob | Math8 | PSSAM8 | Smith | 50 |
| Bob | Math8 | PSSAM8 | Jones | 50 |
| Bob | Math8 | Keylane Algebra | Smith | 50 |
| Bob | Math8 | Keylane Algebra | Jones | 50 |
The following fields should be considered as well:
Teacher of Record ID: PVAAS does not pull information from this field. It uses the teacher listed in the section and any teachers listed in the Co-Teacher tab.
Course Language: Select the code for the primary language in which the course is taught. If no language code is selected, the export program will insert 1290 for English, so you only need to select a code for courses that are taught in a language other than English.
Delivery Model: Select the code that signifies the method used to deliver instruction to the students in this course section. If no code is selected, the export will fill in 0340 for In School.
4. Click the Co-Teachers tab.
The following fields are used in either generating the extract or in the actual extract itself:
Co-Teacher: If additional teachers need to be reported for this section, select them here. The first teacher listed here is Teacher 2.
Start Date: Select the start date the co-teacher will work with the section. If this field has a value, Focus will use it to generate PVAAS records. If left blank, the system will use term dates and dates set in the Pennsylvania Reports Setup
End Date: Select the end date of when the co-teacher worked with the section. If this field has a value, Focus will use it to generate PVAAS records. If left blank, the system will use Term dates and dates set in the Pennsylvania Reports Setup
The following fields should also be considered:
Permissions: This is not reported on as part of PIMS. This indicates the level of access the co-teacher has in the section’s gradebook and attendance. Options are None, Read Only and Modify.
Days Override: This is not reported on as part of PIMS. Select the days the co-teacher will work with the section.
See Courses & Sections for more information.
Student
1. From the Students menu, click Student Info.
2. Click the General tab.
The following fields are used in either generating the extract or in the actual extract itself:
PASecureID: Required. Enter the PASecureID in the provided text box.
See Student Info for more information.
3. Click the Schedule tab from the Student Info screen or click Student Schedule from the Scheduling menu.
Review whether the student is scheduled into course sections that have a subtest assigned via Scheduling > Courses & Sections. See Courses & Sections Data for more information about PVAAS data.
See Student Schedule for more information.
4. Click the Enrollment tab from any of the Student Info screens.
The following fields should be considered as well:
Grade Level: This field is not used by PVAAS.
District of Enrollment: Required only if different than the District Code defined in School Information, otherwise, the PIMS extracts will pull from here for students.
Enrolled School: Required only if different than the School Code defined in School Information, otherwise, the PIMS extracts will pull from here for students.
See Student Info: Enrollment for more information.
User
1. From the Users menu, click User Info.
2. Click the PIMS Staff tab.
The following fields are used in either generating the extract or in the actual extract itself:
PPID or MPTID: Required. Enter the user's PPID or the five-digit MPTID (Municipal Police Officer Training) preceded by the social security number in the provided text box. If the security staff does not have a MPTID, assign them a unique consistent five-digit ID preceded by the social security number.
3. From the User Info screen, click the Teacher Schedule tab.
Review whether the user is scheduled as the teacher or the co-teacher for a section.
See User Info for more information.
1. From the Pennsylvania Reports menu, click PIMS Verification Reports.
2. Select Collection 6 - All Year PVAAS from the Collection pull-down.
3. Select an Effective Date from the month, day, and year pull-downs or by clicking the calendar icon.
4. Click Refresh Report.
5. Click the applicable extract from the left hand panel.
Course Instructor Template: This template is not part of PVAAS collection, but the data in the template is used to generate the PVAAS extract.
Course Template: This template is not part of PVAAS collection, but the data in the template is used to generate the PVAAS extract.
Staff Student Subtest Template: This template is part of PVAAS collection, the data in the template is used to generate the PVAAS extract.
Student Course Enrollment Template: This template is not part of PVAAS collection, but the data in the template is used to generate the PVAAS extract.
See PIMS Verification Reports for more information.
The PVAAS screen allows users to create the PVAAS records for the district. These records can be edited and will be used to create the final file that will be uploaded to the state.
Before generating the PVAAS, the PVAAS Subtest Cutoff Dates must be set via Pennsylvania Reports > Pennsylvania Reports Setup.
This feature allows schools to set the subtest cutoff dates to use for the PVAAS record generation process. If no date is entered for a subtest, Focus will use the course’s marking period end date. For a full year course, that would be the End Date for Full Year (the first tier listed in Marking Periods). For a semester 1 course, that would be the End Date for S1.
1. From the Pennsylvania Reports menu, click PVAAS.
2. Click Generate.
This operation, when run will always include data from all schools in the district. The upload to the state needs to be district wide.
3. From the Generate Student and Staff Subtest Entries pop-up window, click Confirm to generate the PVAAS file or Cancel to quit the operation.
Review the following information thoroughly:
Student enrollments: Ensure that students are enrolled in the correct course sections.
Teacher assignments: Verify teachers and co-teachers are assigned to the correct course sections.
Teacher Responsibility: Verify the correct default percentages were entered in the Pennsylvania tab.
If reporting as a multiple school database, it is important that the key PVAAS data managers at each school complete the preceding steps at the same time. If corrections are needed, make the changes and then generate this file again.
Only once this data is verified would you go on to the next step.
Adjust student-teacher responsibilities percentages as needed.
Adjust those records generated with teachers you previously marked with “999” at the section level.
Adjust any records for student-teacher associated with sections where you set two assessment subtests.
Re-Generating this file overwrites all adjustments made in the teacher responsibility fields.
The first five columns are locked and cannot be edited: School, Course (local course number and title), Section, Assessment, and Student.
Teacher 1, Teacher 1 Instructional Responsibility, Teacher 1 Instructional Relationship: This is the information for the teacher listed on the section. If there are no co-teachers, a responsibility of 100 is set. If there are any co-teachers and the responsibility fields on the section were left blank, the responsibility percent is equally divided among the teachers. In the case of when equal percentages cannot be computed, as in the case of 3 teachers, teacher 1 will have the higher amount.
Teacher 2 - Teacher 10 -- Name, Instructional Responsibility, and Instructional Relationship: This is the information for any co-teachers.
For teachers that only work with a small subset of the students in the section, set their responsibility to 999 in the section via Scheduling > Courses & Sections. This generates a column for each teacher, but the ‘999’ teacher is set to a responsibility of zero for all students. Only those students that work with this teacher will need their responsibility percentages adjusted.
4. After making changes, click Save Records.
1. From the Pennsylvania Reports menu, click PIMS Extracts.
From the PIMS Extracts screen you have many options including the ability to generate, download, and view extracts.
2. Select Collection 6 - All Year PVAAS from the PIMS Collection pull-down.
3. Set the Effective Date as Date Certain from the correct month, day, and year from the provided pull-downs, or click the calendar icon for a calendar view.
4. Make all other necessary selections, including File Download Format, Schools, etc.
5. Select the template(s) to generate: Course Template, Course Instructor Template, Student Course Enrollment Template, and Staff Student Subtest Template. The first three templates are not specific to PVAAS. For this specific collection, only the Staff Student Subtest Template needs to be created and uploaded to the state.
6. Click Generate Extract(s).
It is NOT recommended to open the extract file. Opening in Excel can adversely affect some data. For example, remove leading zeros from numeric data.
See PIMS Extracts for more information.
- PVAAS involves fields from SCHOOL, STUDENT INFO, STUDENT SCHEDULE, COURSES, SECTIONS, STAFF, and Pennsylvania Setup.
- If a user does not see “Pennsylvania Reports Setup” or “PVAAS” on your Pennsylvania Report menu, check the user profile(s) menu permissions and ensure these items are checked for view and edit rights where appropriate.
- Unless EXCLUDED, all PIMS-reportable courses require a state course code.
- For all PVAAS reportable courses, at least 1 assessment subtest must be entered.
- The PIMS Administrator will only maintain the Assessment Subtest field(s) at the course level, unless there are course sections that are different (uncommon). Focus will use the course-level field value(s) for all sections of the course to reduce repetitive entry requirements.
- The teacher identified at the section level and those listed on the tabs Co-teacher and Pennsylvania, will identify the teachers used for determining responsibility.
- PVAAS does not pull information from the Teacher of Record ID field. It uses the teacher listed in the section and any teachers listed in the Co-Teacher tab.
- A co-teacher’s Start and Stop Dates are only required for PVAAS if different from the section’s marking period term dates.
- If teacher instruction responsibility is equal, no responsibility percentages have to be entered on the Pennsylvania tab.
- The Focus PVAAS process will automatically assign equal responsibility by the number of teachers identified, giving any uneven percentage point to the primary teacher. In all cases, the sum total of responsibility percentage will not exceed 100%. E.g. primary teacher plus 2 co-teachers 34%, 33%, 33% respectively. This is done in an effort to reduce repetitive entry requirements.
- If instruction responsibility is not equal, the teacher responsibility is entered with the corresponding Teacher # Responsibility field, where Teacher #1 is used for the primary teacher and co-teachers as they are listed on the co-teacher tab.
- There is a programmed exception for handling teacher responsibility when a co-teacher only works with a small number of students. Entering a percentage of 999 will set the student-teacher responsibility for the co-teacher at 0%. This will allow the PIMS Administrator to do less manual editing by requiring only adjustments in responsibility for the select students.
- Staff can only edit (adjust) the student-teacher responsibility after running the Pennsylvania Reports → Processes → PVAAS.
- If you re-generate PVAAS calculations, any adjustments will be lost. Review verification reports thoroughly and review responsibilities using FILTERS - ON if desired.
- Always check the Extract History before downloading to make sure the submission is a file you generated.