Rosters: Guide to Rostering Students & Teachers

Source: St. Rose School - Teacher PD with MAP Data
Before schools can begin testing, all students, teachers and administrators need to be rostered for the 2016-17 academic year. From this point forward, the rostering process will be completed three times during the academic year and coincide with the scheduled testing windows. 

All rostering data and updates will be shared with schools privately through a secure online folder. We emailed the online credentials to principals and designated school contacts at the end of last year and throughout the summer. The folder contains the school's rostering data from Spring 2016 and is formatted according to NWEA's required guidelines. If you are unable to locate your login credentials, please contact Dr. Amy Ryan at csotechteam@rcab.org.

Step 1: Secure Online Data Sharing

In order to roster students for the fall, each school needs to share a set of detailed Excel spreadsheets with confidential student and faculty data. To protect this information, the Catholic Schools Office created a secure, password protected online folder for each school to share and exchange this sensitive data. Dr. Amy Ryan emailed the login credentials directly to the principal and dedicated school contacts at the end of last year and over the summer. If you experience issues accessing this folder, please contact the CSO Technology Team at csotechteam@rcab.org.

Step 2: Download Spring 2016 Rostering File

Over the course of the past academic year, the Catholic Schools Office partnered with you to ensure that each school's student and faculty data were set for testing and reporting purposes within the NWEA administrative portal. To help you prepare for next year, NWEA graciously agreed to a one-time export of all of the existing rostering data from the 2015-16 academic year.

​We worked to separate this data into individual school files and to share the data through personalized online folders. The week of June 6, 2016 each school will be able to access the Spring 2016 rostering file in Excel through the personalized password protected folder.

Step 3: Update Rostering File

The layout of the rostering template is determined by NWEA. All of the data must adhere to specific guidelines in terms of the header rows (e.g., order, titles, etc.) and formatting (e.g., gender coded as F as opposed to female). Please leave the header row as it appears and simply focus on filling data into each column. Columns that are currently left blank (e.g., Previous Instructor ID) can be left empty and do not need to be completed.

As you begin to compile the rostering file, it is helpful to focus on the NWEA reports that need to be generated next year. How should your reports be organized? By homeroom? By grade? By class?  As you consider these questions, you can then organized the student-teacher-class associations to ensure that these reports can be successfully created. 

On the roster file, each student needs to be associated with one teacher and a corresponding class. If more than one teacher needs access to a particular class, then all of the students need to be listed on the spreadsheet for a subsequent time and then connected to the new teacher. For reference, you can download an example of a completed NWEA roster file for a sample school in the Archdiocese of Boston. 
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Step 4: Student Ethnic Group Categories
For the column marked "Student Ethnic Group" the official categories within NWEA are as follows:
​African
American Indian or Alaskan Native
Asian
Black or African American
Hispanic
Hispanic or Latino
Multi-ethnic
Multiracial
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
Non-Hispanic
Not Specified or Other
Russian
White

You can view a completed set of student ethnic data on the NWEA roster file for a sample school in the Archdiocese of Boston. 

Step 4: IDs for Current & New Students/Teachers

Step 5: Share Updated Rostering File
Additionally, all of the student and teacher IDs must be gathered from the shared roster for Spring 2016 . While you may use different IDs at the school level, it is critical that this data match the information currently within in the NWEA administrative portal. It will ensure that each existing student/teacher profile is appropriately updated. Please do not make any changes to the existing student and teacher IDs.

When adding new students and teachers to the rostering file, please leave ID field field blank. The Catholic Schools Office will generate a unique ID number for new students and teachers. This process will ensure that every new student in the diocese receives a unique ID number.  

In the event that you have a student transfer from another school, please make a note of this status in the ID column. We will work to ensure that this student is properly connected to your school in the fall and that teachers are able to access previous assessment data.
Once your rostering file is updated, to the best of your ability, for Fall 2016, please contact Dr. Amy Ryan by email at csotechteam@rcab.org and request access to the secure online folder designated for submissions. The person designated to upload the completed roster will receive an invitation to the special folder and the capability to upload documents. When you upload the file, please be sure to add it to the folder marked " Submitted Rosters Fall 2016." It will ensure that we are able to successfully access the updated rostering file. Please note that rostering files contain confidential data and should not be shared via email. 

Once the rostering file is submitted, we will review the shared file for accuracy and potential data issues. We will follow up with schools as needed through email.

To ensure that we are well situated for next stage of the work, schools are asked to submit a rostering template by June 30, 2016. If you are unable to meet this deadline, please email Dr. Amy Ryan and formally request an extension. 

Step 6: Revisions & Updates

During the summer, the Catholic Schools Office team will review each file for accuracy and adherence to NWEA's data requirements. We will provide guidance on how to resolve the outstanding issues and share feedback through the private online folder. Each school can then provide necessary updates in August. 

Final rosters will be due by August 15, 2016 to ensure that all schools are ready for the start of the fall testing window. It is important to note that this date is firm due to the time-intensive nature of the rostering process. Schools that submit rosters after the deadline may not be able to begin testing on September 1, 2016.
Image Credits: Thanks to St. Rose, Mission Grammar, and St. Mary of the Annunciation for sharing schools images via Twitter!