Overview
Schools should develop a plan to carefully review the report cards prior to printing and distributing them. Schools should to check for potentially missed grades or issues with the printed report card. Ideally, schools should review every single student’s report card to ensure accuracy. Since this can be a time consuming process, we recommend starting the report card review as early as possible (ideally at least 1 week before report cards are sent home). Additionally, some schools have teachers review and sign Printed Grade Verification Sheets under the Grades menu in Focus. This is covered in our article on Report Card Prep.
However, your district decides to review and verify the report cards, be sure that you plan enough time between the end of the teacher grade posting period and the date in which report cards are sent home to allow for this review.
This article covers the Report Cards module, covering how to preview, print, email, and publish report cards to the portal for electronic access.
Report Cards
The Report Cards module allows for previewing, printing, emailing, and publishing report cards for a select subset of students or all students at once.
Depending on their profile permissions, users also have the ability to customize report cards by deciding what information to display, such as letter grades, course numbers, teachers, and so much more.
To access the report card screen navigate to Grades >Report Cards.
Use the student search box to locate the student(s) you would like to run a report card. To generate report cards for all students, leave the student text box empty.
For a more advanced search and the ability to define a specific subset of students, click the More Search Options button.
Clicking Continue will navigate to the next screen where you can choose to preview, print, email, and/or publish report cards to selected students/contacts.
Indicate the method you would like to use to generate the report cards , you have the option to print, email, or publish reports cards. These methods are described below.
Printing Report Cards
Select the students by clicking the check box next to each student.
As students are selected, the number of selections made will display next to the number of students pulled originally.
To print report cards for all students displayed, select the check box in the header.
Once the students have been selected, click Preview or Print.
If Preview is clicked, you can Preview report cards then click Return to Focus to go back to the Report Cards screen.
Clicking Print generates all of the selected students’ report cards in a print preview screen that allows you to view the report cards before actually printing.
Emailing Report Cards
Emailing report cards is easy to do as long at there is a good email address for the parent/guardian in Focus. Indicate you would like to email report cards to students or each custodial contact.
Selecting custodial contact will email a report card to any contact with the custody flag who has a valid email address.
Enter an email subject and cc addresses if applicable.
You are also able to attach up to 5 files by clicking attach file.
Next, select the students whose report cards you would like to email.
Choose if you would like to Preview the email(s) before sending by clicking Preview or Send Emails to email the selected students' report cards.
You will see a green checkmark indicating the report cards have been emailed.
Publishing Report Cards
Focus allows schools to publish report cards right to the portal screen so that parents/students can access the report card electronically from any device.
Indicate if you would like to publish to the student or parent portal.
Next, select the students whose report cards you would like to publish.
If you want to publish report cards for all students displayed, select the check box in the header.
Once the students have been selected, click Preview or Publish.
If Preview was clicked, preview report cards then click Return to Focus to go back to the Report Cards screen.
Click Publish to publish report cards to the selected students portal or parent portal. Once the report card has been published, you will receive a message saying Report cards have been published.
When a student or parent logs into the student/parent portal, the report card information appears on the Reports tab of the student block, as shown in the image.
The "Download Report Card" link displays as "Download Progress Report" if any of the marking periods on the report card are progress periods.
When the next report card is published, it will display in place of the latest published report card. If other kinds of report cards are published, such as Standard Grades Report Cards, SSRS custom report cards, or Progress Reports, all reports will display simultaneously with the most recent of each card displaying.
Parent Report Cards Report
In the Grades menu, Click Parent Report Cards. Then, select the correct Marking Period from the pull-down.
Note: The Marking Period pull-down displays only marking periods for the school selected in the top-right of the screen.
Select the Schools from the corresponding pull-down. The pull-down defaults to All Schools.
Click Run.
The report displays Student ID, Student Name, School, Grade Level, Acknowledgment Date, and Acknowledge By.