Ask the Experts
My district’s data did not display any student data until late summer. Is there a way to see this data sooner?
This affects districts that do not use Infinite Campus (Brandon Valley and Rapid City). Since their data update occurs later, users from those districts won’t see “current” kids in reports. Every district must finish updates by Sept. 24 for Fall Enrollment, but some districts may do their updates sooner.
A similar issue can occur when Infinite Campus calendars are not set up for the new year. For example, if districts haven’t loaded anyone in enrollments for the new school year in Infinite Campus, this will affect the ability of their SD-STARS users to see their district name in the district parameter in SD-STARS reports.
I am a STARS Account Manager. What do I need to do to be ready for the beginning of the school year?
The new school year is an excellent time for STARS Account Managers in each district to maintain existing accounts and approve new users. Specifically, SAMs will want to review accounts for newly hired staff members and assign permissions to all members of the district’s accountability team.
Approve accounts for new staff
As the school year begins, SAMs will want to approve user accounts for any newly hired staff members in their district. SD-STARS accounts directly tie to the K-12 Data Center and to Infinite Campus.
A common error occurs in Infinite Campus: Often new staff are missing email addresses, job titles, or start dates. For assistance setting up accounts or mapping certain job titles to permission levels, please contact STARSHelp@state.sd.us.
Assigning Accountability permission
As district users prepare for the release of the accountability report card, SAMs will need to assign the Accountability permission. This permission is available for both the district and school level. The district-level permission should be assigned when a user needs to view reports which include student lists for the entire district. If a school-level user (such as a principal) needs to see a student list for only their school, then assigning the school-level Accountability permission would be appropriate. The Accountability permission is a manual permission and will need to be managed by the SAM.
For more on these tasks, see the Training Center in SD-STARS. Navigate to the “STARS Account Manager Resources” section.