Guide to Closing Out the School Year & Student Promotion – COMSOL (JAMAICA) LIMITED

The End of Year (EOY) process is a critical administrative task that transitions your school's data from the current academic year to the next. This process finalizes student grades, promotes or graduates students, and prepares the system for the upcoming school term.

This guide will walk you through the two main tools used during this process: Promotion Criteria (for advanced streaming and ranking) and the End of Year Wizard (for finalizing the transition).

1. Prerequisites: Before You Begin

Before running any End of Year procedures, ensure that:

All Grades are Entered: Teachers have finalized all mark books and grade sheets for the year.
All Terms are Closed: Every academic term (e.g., Christmas, Easter, Summer) for the current year must be marked as "Closed" in the Terms settings.
Review Active Students: Ensure your student roster is up to date and all students who left during the year are properly marked as Withdrawn or Inactive.

2. Phase 1: Promotion Criteria (Optional but Recommended)

If your school streams students based on academic performance (e.g., moving top students into a specific Science class and others into an Arts class), you should use Promotion Criteria before running the final End of Year Wizard.

Promotion Criteria evaluate active students based on a specific grade column (like their Final Average) and automatically distribute them into destination classes.

Creating a Promotion Criteria

Navigate to Settings > Promotion Criteria.
Click New Criteria.
Description: Give it a recognizable name (e.g., "Grade 9 to 10 Science Stream").
Rank By: Type the exact column name you wish to evaluate (e.g., STAVG, FINAL, ST3).
From/To Grades: Select the grade level the students are coming from and going to.
Source & Destination Classes: Check the boxes for the classes students are currently in (FROM), and the classes they should be distributed into (TO).
Click Save Criteria.

Running the Promotion Criteria

Once saved, click the Run (Play) button next to the criteria.

Select the Source Year/Term (usually the current Summer term).
Select the Target Year/Term (the upcoming academic year).
Obey Target Class Maximum Capacities: If checked, the system will fill the destination classes up to their defined maximum limit, starting with the highest-ranked students. If unchecked, students are distributed equally among the destination classes.
Click Build Promotion List.

Printing Promotion Lists

After running your criteria, you can generate print-ready reports for your staff or noticeboards. Click the Print button next to your criteria.

TO List: Groups students by their new destination class. Useful for homeroom teachers preparing for the new year.
FROM List: Groups students by their old class. Useful for current teachers to see where their students are going.

Note: Students mapped via Promotion Criteria will bypass the standard Class Mappings in the End of Year Wizard.

3. Phase 2: The End of Year Wizard

Once your advanced Promotion Criteria have been executed, you are ready to finalize the school year using the End of Year Wizard.

Navigate to Settings > End of Year Wizard.

Step 1: Pre-flight Checks

The system will run a diagnostic to ensure you are ready. It verifies:

The current academic year.
That the promotion hasn't already been run for this year.
That all terms are properly closed. If any checks fail, you must resolve them before the wizard allows you to proceed.

Step 2: Class Mapping

This step catches any active students who were not processed by a Promotion Criteria.

You will see a list of all current active classes.
In the Next Class Mapping column, use the dropdown to select the default destination class for the next year.
Example: All students in 7-1 who didn't meet a specific criteria might default to 8-1.
If you leave a mapping blank, the wizard will stall and ask you to fix it to prevent "orphaning" students.

Step 3: Execute Promotion

Warning: This is the point of no return. Executing this step alters student records and advances the system year.

During execution, the system will:

Graduate Seniors: Any student currently in their final grade (e.g., Grade 11, Grade 13, or the maximum grade defined in settings) will automatically have their status changed from ACTIVE to GRADUATED.
Promote Students: Students are moved to their new classes based on either their Promotion Criteria mapping or the Default Class Mapping you just provided.
Log History: The system safely records the student's old class in their historical timeline and adds a note to their profile.
Advance the System: The current year is closed, a new academic year is automatically generated, and the active system term is reset to "Christmas".
Clear Billing: Current student billing codes are cleared in preparation for the new year's fee generation.

Unregistered Status Option: You may optionally check the box to set all promoted students to <Unregistered> status. This is highly useful if your school requires students to physically register or pay a fee before they are considered fully "Active" in their new classes.

When you are absolutely ready, click Execute End of Year Process. You will be prompted to type "YES" or "CLOSEYEAR" to confirm your decision.

4. After the Process

Once the wizard completes successfully:

Your system is now operating in the new Academic Year.
You can safely begin generating student bills and printing new class rosters.
If any mistakes were made, changes must be handled manually per student, as the End of Year wizard cannot be reversed automatically.