The following guidance is provided to clarify how we should track students who do not carry a full course load. There are four areas that are involved with this issue:

1. Membership Share
2. FTE
3. Part-Time Home Schooled
4. Parent Release Time

A full schedule at EHMS, TMJH, and PCHS is defined as taking 8 of 8 classes (with ONE parent release counting towards that number unless we are sharing the student with another LEA). Elementary schools should round to the nearest 1/2 day based on hours in the school during the day.

Please check our glossary for definitions.

A student is considered to be less than full time under the following conditions:

• Taking less than a full schedule (less than 8 classes for EHMS, TMJH, PCLC, PCHS)
• Having more than one Parent Release on their schedule

Under Utah state law, a student will be considered to be full time if they have one Parent Release in their schedule (1 of 8 for the upper schools). If a student has more than one Parent Release period, their membership will be decreased according to the following table.

Please note that the allowed parent release period only applies if we are not sharing the student with another LEA. If the student is enrolled in multiple LEAs we would report the membership share as courses taken out of total possible without adding in any release periods (last column in the table). Note that a student taking online courses under SB65 DOES NOT count as being in multiple LEAs – they count as our student for those course periods.

This membership value will be used in the calculation of ADA and ADM according to the following formulas:

ADM = (days of membership) * (membership share) * (180 / (number of days in school calendar))

ADA = ((days of membership) - (number of absences)) * (membership share) * (180 / (number of days in school calendar))

For example, for a student with the following course load and attendance:

• 180 day calendar
• 160 days membership
• 10 absences
• 5 courses of a possible 8 (3 parent release and 5 courses)

The membership, ADA and ADM would be as follows:

Membership Share = .75

ADM = ROUND (160 * .75 * 180/180) = 120
ADA = ROUND ((160 - 10) * .75 * 180/180) = 113

Students with a membership of less than 100% will need to be properly marked in PowerSchool. There are a few areas in PowerSchool that may need to be set depending on the specific circumstances.

The Membership Share field is the most important part of properly marking a student as less than full time. This field is used to pro-rate the ADM and ADA values that are sent to USOE and directly impact the funding we receive for a student.

Membership share is tied to a student's enrollment record, so a history is kept as a student's enrollment changes. In order for this history to be accurate, it is imperative that this value is updated when a student's membership (driven by their course load) changes. We will be tracking these changes on a term basis (quarter or trimester as appropriate). If at the start of a term a student's membership has changed the following steps will need to be taken to update their membership:

For EHMS, TMJH, PCHS

1. No action necessary

We will be calculating the membership share based on the student's course load in PowerSchool, using the “UT_ExcludeFromReporting” flag to select only courses that are reported to USOE. Patty will run these calculations at the end of the school year and will update all membership share values as needed.

For Elementary Schools

1. Put in a Helpdesk ticket with a category of PowerSchool and include the student's name, student number, applicable term and membership amount.

The Full-Time Equivalency (FTE) field is used to determine what attendance value to give a student for a given day. According to Utah state law, a student is considered present for a given day if they have been marked present at least once during that day. PowerSchool uses the values created by the FTE to determine what value to use based on the number of periods marked absent (or present) during a day.

When PowerSchool calculates the ADA and ADM values to send to USOE, it only counts up the ZERO (0) values, so any attendance value for a day that is greater than zero is counted as a full present for that day.

NOTE: Starting with the 2012 - 2013 school year we will be using a different FTE calculation to determine the period → daily attendance conversion. All students will be set to the same calculation. This will NOT effect the manner in which teachers take attendance as they will still be marking the absences (blank = present) – this change only effects the conversion calculation.

The Part-Time Home School field is found on the State/Province - UT screen (also called Utah State Information). For any value other than blank, the following conditions need to be met:

• Student enrolled at our district for all (or nearly all) of the school year. Students who are not with us for the year should be listed as blank regardless of their course load.
• Student is taking less than a full schedule for some portion of the school year.

The four possible values for this field should be marked according to the following additional rules:

1. Home Schooled (H)
   • This value is used if a student is home schooled (released from the compulsory education requirement) and taking no more than two classes from the district.
2. Private School (P)
   • This value is used if a student is a private school student and taking no more than two classes from the district.
3. Stable (S)
   • The stable value is used if a student is not a home school or private school student and is carrying less than a full course load.
4. Blank
   • Put no value in this field for all other cases.

For students with the following enrollment and course load scenarios, mark the relevant fields with the indicated values. As of the 2012 - 2013 school year all students will have the same FTE value regardless of course load.

Enrolled for the full year only at TMJH, taking 6 of 8 courses

• Membership Share = .875
• Part-Time = STABLE (S)

Enrolled for only 2nd semester only at PCHS with full course load

• Membership Share = 1
• Part-Time = BLANK

Enrolled for only 2nd semester only at TMJH with 6 of 8 courses

• Membership Share = .875
• Part-Time = BLANK

Home schooled student enrolled for the entire year and taking 1 class

• Membership Share = .125
• Part-Time = HOME SCHOOLED (H)

Private school student enrolled for only 1 semester and taking 1 class

• Membership Share = .125
• Part-Time = BLANK