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Resetting your District for a New 2023-24 School Year (District Administrator)
Resetting your District for a New 2023-24 School Year (District Administrator)

How to reset your district's student data for a new year.

Niki Frisby avatar
Written by Niki Frisby
Updated over a week ago

By dealing with your old Typing Agent data well, you set the stage for your new school year to be fruitful and effective. This Guide explains our terms so that when you log into the program to apply them, you understand exactly what and why you’re taking an action. By fully understanding the functions available to you for data management, you will in a prime position to tailor the resetting process to your exact needs. ONLY the MAIN District administrator can execute these commands.

If you’re using a third-party rostering platform like ClassLink or Clever, click here to view our guide that deals specifically with what you should do with your data now and for the new school year.

When your school year is completed and you're doing the resetting process, you have two options. You may:

i. Export all the reports you want (see Point 1 below) then delete everything from Typing Agent. This will permit you to start from scratch and upload your schools, classrooms, teachers and students again. Just before you want students to have access to the program, upload your 2023-24 information using CSV (UTF-8 Format) files or if you use Google Classroom, have school administrators or teachers add their own classrooms or students. By doing it this way, everything will be set perfectly for when you want to begin. (If you kept your CSV (UTF-8 Format) files from last year, just use that as your base and update that. Our clients who do this move students and teacher around with U to update them in the ACTION column then C to create new students and teachers); or

ii. Use Typing Agent's process, described below, where data are archived and saved so that nothing interferes with the new school year's work. This is the process mainly described below.

FOUR (4) KEY CONCEPTS TO UNDERSTAND WHEN AND HOW TO RESET YOUR DATA

Before taking any action in the program, Typing Agent suggests that you decide WHEN to take the four important steps: export old data, archive old data, delete students’ progress, then fix the date to start collecting new 2023-24 data. If your students are going to continue practicing over the summer holidays, consider leaving your account as is, for now, and a few days before school begins, take the steps to reset your data. This way, students begin their new curriculum in the new school year and your data will relate only to this new school year.

1. Export Data (Optional)

Should you want to keep extensive reports, you’ll need to export them using the tools in the Reporting section.

That way these files will be stored safely on your computers, keeping past reports at your fingertips. Please note that once they’re deleted from Typing Agent, they cannot be retrieved. (Once you've done this, you may want to delete all students who have graduated from your schools so that their spaces will be available for others.)

Once this is done, delete the students who have graduated and are no longer in your district. If you don't do it now, they will be intermingled with new students who will be promoted to that grade level. Simply click on School Management then Classrooms then choose the ones with graduated students. A fly-out menu will appear on the right. Select Delete Classes and confirm that you want to delete them on the pop-up warning that appears. Now those students will not be counted in your roster for next school year. When that this is done, let's move on; we will deal with adding new students and updating things later in this guide.

2. Archive Data (Recommended)

When you archive your data, you create and store a summary of your students’ data within Typing Agent. Should you ever want to revisit that information, simply look under your Archived Reports in your administrator’s Reports area, and select the year you want to review.

3. Delete Students’ Progress Data (Recommended)

Cleaning up your database is an important step to take to get it ready for the next school year. It is the best way to give your students a clean start to begin working towards their new grade-level goals in this new school year. When old data is not deleted, your students in Grades 3-12 will not be given the start-of year Placement Test that serves to assign the optimal instructional path of learning for their new grade level. Moreover, if you don’t delete last year’s work, your new data the new school year will not be as reliable as possible. Remember, you can keep detailed reports on your computer when you export them. Then, to make sure there’s always a record, when you use the Delete feature, you must click the Archive button so a summary of your data is always in your Archived report.

4. Fix the Start Date for New Data Collection (Recommended)

When students start a new grade level, we want to capture what they’re doing that school year only. This is why it is imperative that you fix the start date to begin tracking this information. So, for example, if your school begins August 16, log into Typing Agent on August 15 or a few days earlier and use the actual date you logged in or days before as the date you want your data to be archived, deleted and reset. Anything done after the date you’ve selected will go into your new school year's data collection. (Unfortunately, you cannot log in in July and pre-set your Fixed Date to August 16. We only accept the day of or before as the fixed date and not after.)

So, in order to delete data, you must archive it then fix a date for the new data to be collected. This is Typing Agent’s way of making sure there is a summary of your students’ old work somewhere. If you try to delete without archiving, an error message will appear. When you select both Archive and Delete students’ progress, a calendar will pop up and from there you fix the date you want to begin storing data for the new school year. Once you’ve done this, it takes up to 24 hours to execute your commands. (You may always click the View Status button to see where Typing Agent is in the process or what actions you specified to be done in this New Year Reset.)

These important steps to reset your data for the new school year should be done ONCE a year only so we recommend doing them after the summer holidays. This will save your teachers from having to delete work students did prematurely, which will put them ahead of their classmates, or having students work in the program but who did not work to their new grade-level targets.

PART 1 - Now that you’re understand the process, let’s get started!

>> Log into Typing Agent as the MAIN account administrator.

(Should you want to keep detailed data on your personal computer, click Reporting and export everything you want to keep on your work computer. Once you’ve done that, you can start managing your data.)

>> To manage your data, click on the School Management button and use the checkboxes to select your schools to reset them.


>> A fly-out menu will appear on the right. Select New Year Reset and you will get this page from where you may select these options:

* Archive student data

* Promote students up to the next grade level

* Remove student accounts that were never used

* Reset students’ passwords should you want to do that

* Delete existing students’ progress

1. Archive ALL Student Data: Strongly Recommended and explained above

2. Move Students to the Next Grade Level: Strongly Recommended
Selecting this option promotes students to the next grade level but they remain in last year's classroom cohorts so you may easily find them. If you do the reset without deleting the graduated students, they will be intermingled with your new students at that grade level; you now have to shift through the classes to delete them. Again, save time and energy by dealing with those old students before beginning this resetting process. Should you decide to reset your data for the new school year without first deleting the old students, click here for more information on deleting students.

Note: Advancing students’ grade level does not change the curriculum itself, but will alter the target settings inside the already assigned curriculum by increasing expected WPM and Accuracy targets. (This is discussed in Part 2 below.)

3.

3. Remove ALL unused Student Accounts: Recommended
This will delete all students who have not yet logged into the program. Note, this is irreversible!

4. Reset ALL Student Passwords

This will allow you to reset all students’ passwords to a specific password of your choosing. Like the option prior, this is also irreversible.

5. Delete Existing Classrooms: Recommended

This will delete all classrooms from the previous year so that you may start the new year with fresh rosters.

6. Delete Existing Students' Progress: Strongly Recommended and explained above

Click the checkboxes to activate the steps you want to do. When you're finished taking the above steps, click Update to finalize your selections.

Remember your commands will be queued and processed within 24 hours. Check back then and you will find that your account is ready to begin the new school year!

Part 2 - After your data has been moved over successfully

District administrators, log into your Typing Agent account. Click on School Management, then Schools. Notice that Archived column and your recent archived date.

This indicates when your resetting actions were done. If you don't see a date or there is one from an old school year, this indicates that the resetting/archiving/deleting of your data was not done yet or you need to check your View Status page or take these actions.

Please recall that even though students are promoted to the next school year, they are with their classmates with last year's teacher. You or the school admin may simply edit this by clicking on the pencil at the top of the class name and changing the Primary Teacher by clicking on Agent Gadgets once you click on the classroom. Should you want to do everyone at the same time, you may use a CSV (UTF-8) file to update or add new data to the different areas. In your Action column, use C to create new items or a U to update them.

Then, after your data has been reset, log in to upload your new data using CSV (UTF-8 Format) files or if you use Google Classroom, have school administrators or teachers add their own classrooms or students. By doing it this way, everything will be set perfectly for when you want to begin. (If you kept your CSV (UTF-8 Format) files from last year, just use that as your base and update that. Our clients who do this move students and teacher around with U to update them in the ACTION column then C to create new students and teachers.)

For ease of reference, District Administrators, click here to view our Guide about adding or updating Schools. Should you not need to add or update staff, then click here to add Staff Members. Click here for adding or updating classrooms and here for adding or updating students.

Now that these are good, your next step is to review and/or update your district's general settings. From your dashboard, select School Management.

Most districts use our default settings as they are set to appropriate goals for typical grade levels but know that you may edit these to suit your district's needs:

We have the topics clickable so you are able to look deeper into each setting. Remember: Schools lists the buildings where you have teachers and students rostered. Classrooms provides valuable information on each classroom in your schools. Time Settings directly affect your reports and ensure that Scheduled Tests are accessible only during school hours; Permissions delineate which staff members can manipulate students' accounts and how; Grade Settings affect the lessons, tests, and which grade levels get specific curriculums and games; Gradebook permits the main administrator to set the marking system for all; Target Settings sets the Words Per Minute and Accuracy Goals as well as the number of times students do an exercise before moving on; Grade-Level Scheduled Tests serve up tests for all students at particular levels should the main administrator want to give school-based tests; and District Portal lets you design your Typing Agent page, as well as how teachers and students access the program. By taking this moment to make sure everything is lined up properly will go a long way in making sure your teachers and students have a successful time this school year.

We want to stress the importance of the Time Settings Tab that people tend to overlook. Please be sure to go to the Time Settings tab.

From here, you'll be able to set the school year duration to the 2023-24 school year. (These dates and times affect the accuracy of your reports, graphs, and when Scheduled Tests are given.)

When you're finished, click Save.

Now, you can feel confident that you have all the data you need and that your Typing Agent account is ready for the new school year! We wish you great success and are here to assist should you ever need us.

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