Transcripts

BRIEF SUMMARY

During the 2013 legislative session, the General Assembly passed HEA 1341, and the Governor signed P.L. 111 – 2013 into law. This law establishes the Indiana e-transcript program to allow students attending accredited schools to request that their transcript be transmitted electronically. Below is an overview of these requirements.

KEY POINTS

  • The Indiana Department of Education, Commission for Higher Education and state educational institutions shall develop a common electronic transcript, using common data fields and formats that are required by state educational institutions.
  • Not later than July 1, 2015, all public secondary schools shall use the common electronic transcript developed by the department of education.
  • The governing body of an accredited nonpublic secondary school may elect to use the common electronic transcript developed by the department of education.

SHARED WISDOM

  • (Added 9/25/23 Rebekah Frazer IDOE): Please consider reviewing the Student Academic Records memo here that has an FAQ document linked about halfway through that has scenarios concerning high school course enrollment that may be helpful.
  • (CounselorTalk January, 2023): Requirements and Guidance for Indiana High School Transcripts (updated December 2021)
  • Q: We have seen several new students at our school from Haiti and Guatemala with transcripts from their schools. Most are 10th and 11th graders, we can get the transcripts interpreted but have no idea how each class was graded and how many credits they are worth. Interested in what others have done with this situation to provide the best situation for the student while keeping the integrity of credits for your school.
    • A: Our registrar always requested the following information from overseas transcripts or transcripts from another country:
      1. How many days per week did the class meet
      2. How many minutes per day did the class meet
      3. A description of the class

Once she had that information, she could calculate that seat time against our school/district seat hour requirements compared to how many credits each of our courses was worth. Additionally, once the course description was translated, we could compare it to our course descriptions for curriculum alignment to transfer either as core or as elective credit.

Additionally, we compiled semester based tests for students in situations like these to “test out” of the classes and earn the credit, especially if their overseas/foreign classes transferred in as electives and not core classes. We provided study guides and allowed students to take the test with a passing score to earn that core credit if necessary. This was a district written policy.

  • Q: Do you mark year-long dual credit courses as dual credit for both semesters, or do you mark them as dual credit for the 2nd semester only? We use Harmony, and that causes year-long courses to show up twice in the dual credit portion of the transcript which makes it appear they’ve earned 6 college credits instead of 3, for example.
    • A:
      12 of the respondents said that they mark year-long dual credit courses (worth 3 college credits) for the 2nd semester only.
      1 said that she marks both semesters.
      1 said that she indicates “yes” (for dual credit) for both semesters but only enters the college course number, credits, etc. for 2nd semester.  (I don’t think this is an option in Harmony.) When I contacted Harmony about this previously, I was told that it’s a “local decision” but that most schools report it at the end of the year, and then it appears on the CC report for 2nd semester only.
  • Q: I have recently had several students from out of state and their entire 2nd semester last year did not have grades, just P’s.  How is everyone handling this?  How are you transcripting these “grades”?
    • A: I spoke to Michelle Clark directly the other day concerning this topic. She informed me: 1. communicate with transferred school to see if they have % to work with; 2. If not, it is the local district determination to decide. Therefore, the local district needs to create a policy. Our admin is currently communicating with schools in our area to see if any policies have already been created.
    • A: I’ve called the school and asked for the percentages they had at the end of the semester.
    • A: In general at my school we have done 2 things. If it was a year-long class, we gave them the same grade for 2nd semester that they earned first semester (good or bad). If it was a 1 semester class, then most often we gave a D. However, if you have a student that is usually a high achiever, then I think a D is unfair. I did not have any students with that particular circumstance. If I did, I would have asked my director to consider 2 more options: a) This student has taken other classes in this pathway/department. Could we average their grades from those classes and assign a grade based on that? or
      b) Could we look at this student’s gpa and assign a letter grade based on their typical achievement? (If the student has a 2.XX gpa, then give them a C for every “P”… a 3.XX gets a B… and a 4.XX gpa gets an A. This option might lower the student’s grade some, but not as significantly as a D would.)
    • A: Students who enroll with us receive an A for the class as we cannot be certain that they would have earned a lower grade and we do not want to penalize them for not having letter grades. We had a conversation about awarding a C for average but in that conversation we landed on giving the A.
    • A: We’ve been contacting the previous school for their final % in those classes
  • Q: After quarter grades are reported and posted, are teachers allowed to go into the first nine weeks and adjust grades, or are grades locked down?
    • A: We allow for changes. But it’s extremely rare. Teachers must go through numerous steps to change a grade and there is a comment section that must be completed in the system as to why the change occurred.
    • A: It depends on when the gradebooks were scheduled to lock. We have ours lock at midnight on the day grades are posted…if the teachers need to make a change after that, our PS administrator has to unlock the gradebook.
    • A: Also, if you use Powerschool – if the teacher makes changes after grades have been stored, the staff who stores grades also needs to go in and manually change the grade.  Powerschool will not update grade changes after they have been stored just from a teacher update.  They have to be manually changed.
  • Counselor Talk (January 2019) Responses for how schools handle audits when a student retakes a course they passed in order to get a better grade (often to keep AHD or meet a prereq for the next level).
    • We keep both grades on the transcript.  Both are averaged into the GPA
    • When students retake a course, all grades earned will appear on the transcript, but the higher of the two grades is used to factor into the GPA
    • We delete the old grade and let the new grade take its place.
    • We do a true grade replacement when student has taken a class over to get a better grade. The first grade remains on the transcript, however we have a special code (*) on the grade and the GPA points are removed from the GPA calculation. The new grade is entered and the new GPA points calculate into the cumulative GPA. We use Skyward
    • The first grade is still shown on the transcript, but we change the credit to zero (for the D), but keep it in the GPA credit.  We limit re-takes to D/Fs, and only allow students in realistic standing for AHD to re-take for a D grade.
    • We keep both grades in the GPA but only give credit for taking it once.
    • http://www.kokomoschools.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_164962/File/KoKoMo%20Students/Master%20LENS%202018%206-26-18.pdf – Page 27 talks about repeating classes.
    • Both grades remain on the transcript for us. The higher grade is the one we manually update to factor into the GPA. Students are allowed 4 audits throughout high school!
    • We’re a small school so it’s based on a case-by-case basis.
    • We usually approve it as long as we can get the schedule to work. No matter what, both grades are recorded on the transcript.  The higher grade is the one given credit though and factored into the GPA.
    • We allow students to retake (audit) any class that they earned a C+ or lower and the new grade is figured into the GPA.
    • My previous school a student could audit any class where they earned a D+ or lower and the highest GPA points they could earn was a 2.0, so kids could retake classes just to adjust class rank. Basically it only helped kids be eligible for AHD.

    • Here’s our audit/retake policy from our student handbook:

      AUDITING OR RETAKING CLASSES Students who wish to retake a course in order to improve the grade may do so in consultation with their counselor. Students wishing to improve a single semester grade for a yearlong course will be allowed to retake the entire year if they choose to do so. When retaking a course, the original grade and the grade earned when the class is retaken will both appear on the student’s transcript. The higher grade will be associated with the credit and factored into the student’s GPA. The lower grade will remain on the transcript with a notation that the course was retaken, but will not be included in the calculation of the student’s GPA. In order to place into a higher-level course than what was recommended by the Carmel Clay School System, a student may request to sit for a placement exam prior to starting the next sequence course to determine placement. Incoming 9th graders with high school credit earned in middle school may retake those courses at Carmel High School if the grade earned in the middle school is lower than a “B-.” When retaking a course previously taken in middle school, the course, credit and grade earned in middle school will not be a part of the Carmel High School transcript. In some cases, students transferring to Carmel High School may audit a class if the audit is recommended after appropriate evaluation by an academic department and is approved by the principal. During the regular school, an audit or retake may be denied if placing a student in a particular class for this purpose causes the class size to be excessive. Again, the principal will make the decision in such cases. Before enrolling in non-CHS courses, the student must have permission from their CHS counselor to enroll and to apply the specific course toward CHS diploma requirements. A maximum of 8 credits earned from other approved accredited programs will be accepted.

  • E-transcripts reduce time, effort, and expenses in handling transcript requests for universities and colleges.
  • Provides real-time, online status reports of where each student has requested transcripts to be sent.
  • Q: How are schools putting the Certificate of Multilingual Language ​on transcripts?
    • A: Here is the slide from the Powerpoint about the Multilingual Language Certification that the IDOE sent out that describes how to include it in a student’s transcript

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