to create a new letter. Revised 8/15/2018
Policy Processing is used to
produce letters for attendance policy, discipline policy or for any other reason
you wish to send letters based on your demographic data or health records. For
example, you may want to send a letter to all seniors about the senior trip
or graduation or to all juniors with details on the PSAT.
In this
section, you will create the letters. Each letter will have a code (name),
description, selection criteria, and body of the letter. Once the letters are
created, they can be used as often as needed to communicate information about
the student’s attendance, discipline, or demographics to parents/guardians.
1. To start creating policy letters, enter WSO | School Policy Processing | Policy Definition.
2. Click to create a new letter.
3. Enter a code (name) for the letter. The limit is 10 characters, and the same code cannot be used more than once.
4. Enter a short description regarding the topic of the letter. This statement prints in the heading of the letter. The limit is 50 characters.
5. Choose the policy type.
o Daily Attendance: Policies designed for Daily Attendance will work off of the Attendance table. When running the policy, you will specify an Activity Date Range and an Evaluation Date range. The system will look at all the students absent in the Activity Date Range. It will then look for records within the Evaluation Date Range that contain the codes specified in the criteria.
o Period Attendance: Policies designed for Period Attendance will work off of the Attendance_by_Class table and look at the records on a “by class” basis, such as missing three times in the same class as three records toward the policy. This policy type also uses an Activity Date Range and an Evaluation Date range.
o In Any Period: Policies designed for In Any Period will work off of the Attendance_by_Class table and look at the records in any class, such as missing three different classes in one day as three records toward the same policy. This policy type also uses an Activity Date Range and an Evaluation Date range.
o Demographics: Policies designed for Demographics will work off of the Demographics table. Any field in your Demographic table may be used in the criteria. For example, letters about the senior trip may be sent to the senior class by using Grade_Year = 12. To send a letter to the parents of students on bus route 3B and you have a bus_route field, identify them using bus_route = 3B. There is also an option allowing you to checkmark specific students to send a letter to.
o Discipline: Policies designed for discipline will work off of the Infraction code and/or Penalty Code in the Discipline table. When running the policy, you will specify an Activity Date Range and an Evaluation Date Range. Activity Date Range: Looks at all students with infraction_date within that range. Evaluation Date Range: For those students, tallies the records falling within that range that have the specified infraction code/s.
o Health Records: Policies designed for Health Records will work off of the Health Records table. Any field in your Health Records table may be used in the criteria. For example, to send a letter to parents of any student missing a particular immunization, the selection criteria would be set up to look at that immunization field in the Health Records table.
6. Define the selection criteria. The criteria building box will change depending on your choice for the policy type. Click the “Save Selection Criteria" button to save your work.
7. Type the body of the letter. Do NOT include a salutation as this will be provided in the letter production. Type the letter, letting the text wrap within the window provided. The letter production process will take care of the margins.
o To indent a paragraph, use the space bar.
o To begin new paragraphs press the Enter key.
o To insert a blank line, press the Enter key again.
o You will include the closing portion of the letter (sincerely, regards, etc.) and the person’s signature line and title as necessary. Be sure to adjust this name and title in the event of a staff change.
o Press the Enter key at least once after the last line of the letter. Period attendance letters will automatically list the course name(s) that trigger the policy at the end of the letter.
8. Click 
to save the new policy.
Please see the documents listed below for detailed instructions on setting up policy selection criteria for each Policy Type.