Iowa: Roster and Student Data Management

Important:

The anticipated date for updated roster loading in FastBridge is early August (for those rolled over in July). To ensure your district's rosters are successfully loaded please make sure your district has completed the following steps in your student information system:

any SIS/SIF program updates have been installed
it is set to send the current year's data
all student schedule data entry is complete

Adding and Editing Students and Rosters

For Iowa schools, Classroom User (teacher) accounts, rosters, and student demographic information are manage through data entry in the district’s student information system (SIS). Users will not be able to upload or enter directly in FastBridge, as depicted in articles posted in the nationwide - not Iowa specific - sections of the FastBridge knowledge base.

Exceptions to this are the student login and password when Setting Up Student Login Access and the checkboxes on the Manage Classroom User Access page - all of which can be edited in FastBridge.

Student demographics, rosters and Classroom User information are not updated real-time. FastBridge will reflect what was in your SIS on the previous day. As data is entered or changed in your SIS, it's sent to FastBridge and populated into a roster file that will be automatically loaded into FastBridge during the next update. Updates occur nightly during the school year. For more information on the data entry and systems communication processes, see: Iowa: How the Automated Roster Process Works

Required Data Elements

All of the data elements (and supporting data) below must be accurately entered in your SIS in order for students to be visible in FastBridge. If any of the data are missing, incorrect or have been entered since the last nightly update, the student or roster will not be reflected in FastBridge.

Enrollment in a school that is active in FastBridge with a start date prior to the current date
Grade assignment that is enabled for the school
A valid student state ID (entered for 2-3 days, if your district uses the student locate program to populate ids)
Student scheduled into at least one class/section, the section is assigned to a teacher, start date prior to the current date (For JMC, this means in the scheduler module with the class scheduled to a period. The homeroom list will not create roster entries)
The teacher assigned to the class/section must have a valid email address.

Exiting/Removing a Student

In your SIS, end enrollment in the school by entering an end/exit date
Do not delete enrollment records in your SIS if an end/exit date field is available. If an enrollment is created in error, enter an end/exit date corresponding to the start date
To remove a student from just a class/teacher, place an end date on the relevant course/section enrollment for the student in your SIS (for JMC only; remove the from the section or course to delete).
If removing the teacher from a course/section, allow several days for it to be effective in FastBridge. An update is not automatically sent from SIS to FastBridge for this event so there is a program that runs regularly to refresh this. Usually this update process takes a week or more.

Student State ID Changes

If a student's state id is changed in your student information system, the student's existing screening and monitoring scores will no longer be visible FastBridge and the student will disappear from all monitoring groups. The good news is that the data is safe and can be restored.

How to resolve:

1. Confirm with Iowa's student state ID coordinator which state ID is correct for state reporting. Note: this is incredibly important as once the data merged into the new ID, it cannot be undone!

2. Submit a support request in FastBridge or email help@fastbridge.org. Please include the following:

district and building
student first and last names, exactly as they appear in your SIS
previous state student ID
new state student ID

The student’s previous screening and monitoring data will be connected to the student record with the first student ID and will not be visible in data displays until the merge of records is completed by Fastbridge. The merge can take a few days to complete but the student's data will still be available to FastBridge District Managers in the Data Download report.

Why does this happen? Basically, the student's state id is the primary identifying data element for students and all data is tied to it the system; therefore, FastBridge programming doesn't know that it's the same student and creates a new student record with the new ID.

Student Name Changes

FastBridge uses the student state ID as the #1 piece of identification of the student. If either a student's first or last name was changed (only one of them) in your student information system, it will be changed in FastBridge during the nightly update. When the student's first AND last name are both changed in your SIS, FastBridge will detect a different name is associated with the ID during the nightly updates and the it marks all roster rows with an error for being a 'duplicate'. If that happens, the student isn't visible in FastBridge (but the scores are safe in the database!!) until it's fixed. Submit a support ticket in FastBridge or email help@fastbridge.org, which also creates a ticket, for assistance. It will take at least overnight to resolve the problem. Please include the following information in your support ticket:

Student's previous first and last name EXACTLY as it appeared in your student information system
Student's new first and last name EXACTLY as it appeared in your student information system
Student's state id

Student Moving - Data transfer

Student screening and monitoring data does not transfer between districts in FastBridge but will transfer in the MTSS system, Student Success, if the student's state id hasn't changed. If a student is moving into your district from another Iowa district, you will need to view the data in Student Success or contact the previous district for any reports they may have exported from FastBridge before the student was exited. Use the data as needed for decision making in your school, but please do not enter old data from the prior school into the FastBridge system.

In FastBridge, data only transfers for students who change buildings in the same school district. The process is automatic if the exit from the original building and start in the new building are consecutive calendar dates (no weekend gap). If those dates aren’t consecutive calendar dates, the data probably won’t transfer and you would then need to submit a support ticket in FastBridge.

Understanding Class ID Abbreviations on the Class List Page

The class id visible on the class list is an abbreviation based on the grade, course name, and section number.

Decoding the class id: the first part of the class id is the grade level, the next character is the first letter of the course title (from your SIS), and the final digit(s) are the section number.

For District Managers, the View Student Roster page displays the course, section, teacher and class id. It is useful as a quick reference.

Still need help?

Follow your district's plan for support, usually by contacting your FastBridge District Manager. If your district doesn't have a plan, submit a support request in FastBridge or by emailing help@fastbridge.org (which also creates a support request). Don't forget to include specific details such as the name of the building, grade level, teacher, assessment and the student(s) first and last names. Do not use the chat feature or phone support number through Fastbridge, as your Iowa support team is not available via those methods.

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