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      Transcripts - Putting it all together

      This article outlines how to put together a high quality transcript using ClassReach's many customizable options and settings.

      There are several inputs to creating a good transcript and when successfully set up, ClassReach produces an impressive picture of your students' achievements.  This article outlines the customizable features that allow you to produce a comprehensive transcript for your students.

      Transcripts are a type of Report.  There are actually two default type Transcript Reports available on the Reports page.  

      • Transcripts: To view a full record of a student's courses taken and credit earned, you will want to use this report type.
      • Unit Transcripts: This report expands the Transcript report by allowing you to select several more options including dividing up the school year to see the grades for each Grading Unit (which should correspond to each reporting period).

      The Transcript has 3 main sections - a header, the body and a footer.  

      1. The Header - this section consists of the school name, address, phone number and website.  This information comes from the School Information Settings page.

      2. The Body of a transcript comes from Courses in ClassReach and any credits the student transferred in from another school via the Transfer tab on their User Info Form (usually entered by an admin).  Both of these will be discussed below.  The courses are grouped together by Academic Year and further described by Academic Level if the student was enrolled in your school and you were using ClassReach for that year. In the example below, this student transferred in all the courses prior to 12th grade.  Notice the 2022-2023 school year is labeled differently as "2022-2023: 12" and that previous years include the prior school in parentheses after the course name (this is optional).

      3. The Footer - this is the customizable section of the transcript.  It begins with the student's GPA and Total Credits Earned.  The rest of the footer is customizable.  You customize it in two places - the User Info Form and the Transcript Settings at the bottom of the Settings page.  Both are described in detail below.

      Course data for the Transcript

      Every course in ClassReach has a Transcript tab where the admin can indicate whether the Course is included in the transcript.  Also, each course has the option on the General tab to assign the  number of credits the course is worth (this impacts the transcript).

      Transfer data for the Transcript

      The data for transfer courses is entered on the student's People page on the Transfer tab.

      If you click the "Edit" button you will see the below view which gives you the option of including the course on the Transcript and having it Affect the GPA.   Ensure all grades have been entered and that they are numerical grades.  These should be in the 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 range and correspond to any letter grades entered (The numerical grade is required as it will "break" the transcript report if it's missing).

      NOTE:  Courses are entered in the Transcript tab by Academic Term.  You must have the Academic Terms specified in the School Settings prior to adding Transfer courses.

       

       

      Customizing the User Info Form for the Transcript

      The Footer of the Transcript may be customized by fields entered on the User Info Form.  This may include such things as Class Rank, Student Awards and Honors, Graduation Data, Endorsements and/or Diploma Plan.

      Class Rank Settings:  On the Settings page, you have the option of entering customized Class Rank Settings such as weighting class rank by course credit or excluding courses that don't affect GPA.  The Class Rank Settings are used for a Default Class Rank Report.  These Settings do not connect or export to the Transcript.  If you want to include Class Rank on the transcript, you may pull the Class Rank Report and then manually enter the Class Rank on the User Info Form for the student (see example below).

      The User Info Form may be set up to include Transcript information for Students.  On the Advanced tab, each field has the option for selecting Footer or Footer:Bottom (which would be displayed at the bottom of the footer section below the others).

      An example implementation looks like this:

      See the example transcript above to see how this appears on a transcript.

      Transcript Settings 

      The Transcript Settings section on the Settings page allows the admin to set several parameters for the transcript as seen below.  

       

      Of particular importance is GPA Rounding Decimals.  This setting determines the precision of the overall GPA printed at the bottom of the transcript.  If the system calculates a 3.68966 GPA, this setting how many decimal places are displayed.   If you select "0" decimal places it will display the GPA as "4."  If you select "1" decimal place it will display "3.7."  If you select "2" it will display "3.69."  High school GPAs are typically rounded to 1 or 2 decimal places.

       

      The Custom Transcript Markings may be used for various circumstances such as Withdrawal, No Grade or Completed.  These would override the normal grade a student receives in a course for the purposes of the transcript.  This is entered on the Student's People page, School tab by clicking the edit button next to their grade as seen below:

      GPA and GPA Scales

      GPA is determined based on your school's individual criteria, but you should take in to consideration the need to be consistent with other high schools around the country as GPA is a very important part of the transcript.  The overall GPA displayed at the bottom of the transcript is calculated as a weighted average of every course in 9th - 12th grade.

      Each course has three columns of data presented on the transcript.

      1) Grades - the percentage grade for each course (displayed with 0 to 5 decimal points)

      2) Credits - this definition varies by state and school district.  Here for purposes of an example, 1.0 credit is awarded for a full year class completion and 0.5 credits would be awarded for a one-semester class.  We also used an example at the beginning of the article where 3 credits were given for a full year class completion, which is not common.  As long as your numbering scheme is consistent in your school the GPA will calculate correctly.  The credits are the weighted portion of the GPA.  A 1.0 credit class is weighed twice what a 0.5 class is weighed when calculating the GPA.  If 3 credits were used for a full year class, then you should use 1.5 credits for a semester class.  

      3) Points - As described below, points come from the school's GPA Calculation settings.  The most common GPA scale is the four-point grade scale. In this scale, the letter grade ‘A’ equals four points, the letter grade ‘B’ equals three points, the letter grade ‘C’ equals two points, the letter grade ‘D’ equals one point, and the letter grade ‘F’ equals zero points. 

      The GPA Calculation section of the School Settings page lets admins set the scale(s).  Here you have the standard 4.0 scale described in the last paragraph and you may also add an additional GPA Scale for Honors or AP classes that are on a 5 point scale such that students taking those classes could end up with a GPA greater than 4.0.  This is often referred to by colleges as a "Weighted GPA."

      If you would like to set up different scales (for instance, an AP course on a five point scale),  it takes two steps - setting up the Course Options first and then setting up the GPA Calculations.  See the Creating/Editing GPA Scales article  for details.


      The overall GPA represents the weighted average number of grade points a student earns for each graded high school course.  Multiply the credits of each course by the Points to get the weighted value of each course.  Add up those weighted values and divide by the total number of credits earned (listed next to the GPA) to get the student's GPA.

      NOTE: Courses in which a student does not receive a grade, such as pass/fail and audited courses, do not factor into the GPA calculation.  These could be listed on the transcript, but select "No" to "Affects Overall GPA" on the Course Transcript options - see here.