Every year, when the school year ends and summer rolls around, there are questions about what content in the School Loop system carries over into the next year -- what is archived, what is perpetual, and what is deleted? "Archived" means the records will be placed in a specific location for later access. "Perpetual" means that the records will simply continue to exist on an ongoing basis, and nothing will be deleted. "Deleted," as you might expect, means they are removed from the system. Below is a master list of how different types of content within the School Loop system are treated.
Note: Since some content, including assignments, course news, events and notes, are either archived or removed, it is best not to jump ahead and add this content for the next school year during the summer until your school has been rolled. The roll typically happens about a week to 10 days before the first day of school. Contact your district or School Loop support to find out when your school is scheduled to roll.
Archived Content
Shortly before the start of a school year, School Loop prepares sites for the new year by archiving certain types of content. This process occurs approximately 10 days before the first day of the school year. The exact date is at the school's discretion.
Assignments. are archived and can be located by clicking the Course Archives link in Quick Links on the teacher's portal page. Archived Assignments can be copied and republished to any course or Curriculum Group you belong to.There is also a Mass Copy option which will publish the assignment to all listed courses.
Course Lockers. Course locker content is archived, however course lockers also remain in the courses and are available automatically in your classrooms if you teach the same course next year.
Course notes. Teachers can copy and republish course notes for display on the Bulletin Board.
Curriculum - Published Units, Lessons, and Assignments are archived and can be located by clicking the Course Archives link in Quick Links on the teacher's portal page. Archived Curriculum can be copied and republished. Units, Lessons and Assignments in draft form will not be archived.
Gradebooks. Teachers will have access to their gradebooks for the past school year only. These archived gradebooks are fully functional except that you cannot add new assignments or change the settings.
Inactive Students. Students without active schedules remain in the student list, unless they have graduated (see deleted content below). However inactive students and their parents are unable to login and do not appear in LoopMail, trackers or other active user lists within the system.
Inactive Teachers. Teachers who have left the school will move to the Inactive Teachers list when the school is rolled. This allows administrators to access archived progress reports and other records from the teacher accounts. Login rights can be blocked from the Inactive Teachers list.
LoopMail. LoopMail messages for the three previous school years are available through the Historical Archive link on the left side of your LoopMail inbox. Archived messages are sorted by school year and you will have access to both your sent and received LoopMail messages. Messages that you have placed in custom folders will not be automatically archived and will remain in their folders.
Progress reports. Past progress reports are also available through the teacher's Course Archives link. These progress reports are not editable. It is important to make sure you have published grades in all of your gradebooks to ensure that progress reports are available to be archived.
Note: Course websites are no longer tied to to your Course schedules. Archived material copied from your archives will appear in your Classrooms instead of your old course websites.
Note: Course archives cannot be copied out of the archives until you have an active schedule. Some districts do not import schedules until just before the first day of school.
Perpetual Content
Course website content. The function of course websites have been replaced with Classrooms and are no longer tied to the course schedules. The old course websites are now regular public pages under the teacher website, so most content is perpetual.
If you have pointed your website Notes, Calendar, or Locker elements to your courses, then the content in those elements will follow: Course events are cleared just before the beginning of the new school year. Course Notes are archived, and can be copied into the Classrooms. Course Lockers are archived, but also are available automatically in the Classrooms if you are teaching the same courses.
Bulletin Boards. Bulletin Boards found in the Course Tools are perpetual with the exception of notes. Course notes added to the Notes module on the bulletin board are archived.
Custom Data Imports. Any information uploaded via the custom data feature will continue to display into the following school year until changes are made by an administrator.
Discussion threads for groups, news items, and events. All discussion in these areas will continue to display on an ongoing basis. Users can continue discussions over the summer and into the new year.
Events. The last 12 months of events at all levels (district, school, groups, personal, and website events) are saved from year to year. Course events are removed just before the beginning of the new year.
Groups. All groups including Curriculum Groups are perpetual and remain unchanged from year to year.
Lockers. No locker content is altered when the site is rolled into the new year, with the exception of course lockers which is discussed above. This includes personal lockers, group lockers, and website lockers. In the case of personal lockers, any saved file will continue to be available into the next year, provided that user returns to the school.
Membership challenges. Any challenged memberships will continue to display on administrator and system administrator portal pages, and can be addressed with the View All Challenges or Take Action buttons.
News. We save the last 12 months work of news. By clicking the View All News button wherever news is displayed in the system, you will be able to look at posted news dating back for that time period.
Student Record: files, and interventions. These aspects of the student record will remain intact and unchanged from year to year. Only the student's previous year schedule and Turned in Work is not retained (see below).
Student Trackers. Until a student graduates, he/she will remain on any student trackers unless they are removed or no longer qualify. This includes personal trackers, school-wide trackers, and high-priority trackers.
User Accounts. All user accounts (with the exception of graduating student/parent accounts) are kept from year to year. All account types except for teachers and students can be manually deleted by using the Delete link in the user lists.
User History, Account History, and Settings History. Each of these lists will continue to be available to system administrators into the following school year -- however, there is currently a 1-year limit on these historical records. Records older than 1 year are deleted.
Website content. Content posted to the school website will not be altered from one year to the next. Changes can be made to the website at any time by users with Webmaster rights, and the system will never delete anything with the exception of Website notes which are cleared just before the beginning of the new school year.
Deleted Content
School Loop doesn't delete much from year to year, but when we do, it happens at the same time other content is archived -- approximately 10 days before the start of the new school year.
Assignment discussions. All assignment discussions are purged. When a teacher republishes an assignment from their Course Archives, no discussion is attached.
Attendance data. No attendance data from previous years is retained in School Loop.
Course events. Course events are purged at the beginning of the school year.
Gradebooks. Gradebooks beyond the past school year are not maintained.
Gradebook settings. Because gradebooks are not carried over from previous years, teachers must re-enter any gradebook settings at the beginning of the new school year, including grade scales, categories, and custom codes.
Grade Export data. Grade export data including print reports from the previous year are not retained. Teachers can use the Save and Print button on the grade submission screen to keep a printed version of submitted grades for their records.
Graduating Student and Parent accounts. Graduating student accounts and parent accounts associated with those students are deleted from the system.
Student Dropbox and Turned In Work. Student work from the previous year is not retained. Students can use their personal lockers to save work from year to year.
Student schedules from previous school years. School Loop does not retain information on a student's schedule from the previous school year.
Usage statistics. Each year the statistics are reset, starting page counters from a fresh zero.
Website notes. Notes posted on webpages are purged at the beginning of the school year.
