We’ve tried hard to make is SUPER EASY for schools to customize their own Report Cards. But sometimes, schools want a little more flexibility in the way grades are reported to parents, especially when it comes to reporting specific grades from the Gradebook into the Report Cards.

To that end, QuickSchools offers an add-on service to build custom templates for you. And with a custom Report Card template, you can make use of the Gradebook Default Columns which provide more structure in the way grades are reports from the Gradebook to the Report Cards.

The “Admin Column” was previously called “Default Column” and was changed to reflect the administrative nature of the feature. Please see release notes in Sprint E15.

Overview

At QuickSchools, we regard the Gradebook as the domain of the teacher. Teachers should have full flexibility to set up columns and assessments as they see fit. Teachers can also engage with parents by sharing comments about specific assignments.

The report cards on the other hard, we regard as the domain of the school administration, where grades are formatted and standardized to provide a streamlined report to parents on the progress of students. This process of building report cards can include additional criteria (like comments) which teachers can add directly to the report cards. And by default, only the Final Grade from the Gradebook is transferred to the Report Cards.

Transferring Multiple Gradebook Columns to the Report Cards

So what happens if you have several fields in the report cards that you’d like to be calculated and transferred automatically from the Gradebook? For example, in addition to a final grade, perhaps you’d also like to report an Exam Grade or Participation Grade that is also recorded in the Gradebook (perhaps as a category).

To facilitate this, you can configure Gradebook Default Columns which automatically appear in all teacher Gradebooks. These columns appear in orange, and is controlled by the school administrator:

Teachers can then fill in the data manually, or use a Gradebook formula to fill in these columns. Once the school administrators are ready to publish the report cards, in addition to locking the report cards, they can also lock the System Columns from the Gradebook. To create a Gradebook Default Column, just go to “Grading Setup” and scroll to the very bottom where it says “Gradebook Default Columns”:

When you click on “Add Default Column”, you’ll have the following options:

The transfer of grades from System Columns to the Report Cards require specific meta ids (basically a way to link system columns to fields in the report cards), and as such would also require a custom report card template. For more information of Default Gradebook Columns, check out the support article below:

https://support.quickschools.com/hc/en-us/articles/207894106-Default-Gradebook-Columns-for-Transferring-Averages-to-Report-Cards

If you’re interested in pursuing this further, please contact QuickSchools support.

UPDATE from SPRINT E15:

The term “Default Column” has been renamed to “Admin Column” to reflect the administrative nature of this feature. Please see release notes in Sprint E15.