Overall Grades Data Block
We designed the grades data block to answer key questions related to your grades data about the district, schools, courses, teachers, and students.
We designed this data block to drive data conversations between superintendents and school leaders in order to:
- Help superintendents identify schools that may need extra support and reveal achievement gap disparities
- Spur conversations with leaders of schools with a high percentage of students on track to graduation to share best practices across the district, or conversely intervene with schools that are struggling
- Allow schools to target standards their students need the most help on, while informing district resource development and allocation
Within school communities, this data block can:
- Help school or grade-level leads reach out to teachers who are behind on grading to reduce end-of-term grading surge
- Look at teacher grading consistency to evaluate whether to plan professional development time around grading practices
What the data block includes:
- In Progress and Final Grades
- Standards Grades
- Grade, Points Earned, Points Possible, Grade Name (i.e., A, B, C), GPA Grade (i.e., 3.0, 4.0)
- Component-level grades (i.e., 40% on assessments)
- Assignment-level grades
What the data block does not include:
- Pre-calculated cumulative, year, or term GPAs - see our GPA data block instead!
- Weight of component grades (i.e., assessment worth 40% of your final grade)
What makes a grade "In Progress?"
We mark a grade as "In Progress" if a record of the grade exists ONLY in the In Progress Grades Table/gradebook in the student information system. These grades are considered unstored. For example, in PowerSchool, grades that only live in the PGFinalGrades Table (not in STOREDGRADES) are flagged as "In Progress."
What are "Component Grades?"
Component grades are the pieces that make up the overall course grade. For example, a course may have four components that make up the overall grade: assessments, assignments, participation, and projects. The component grade that appears in your data block will be the weighted average of all assignments in each category.
Why don't I see component grades in my data block?
Component grades require assignment-level data. If assignment-level data is not stored in your student information system, component grades will not be available.
What are the "Standardized_XX" fields in each table?
These are fields that can be configured through the Data Configuration Settings. While they are primarily used in the Schoolzilla dashboards, you can use them to easily group and categorize your data for other reporting. Please see this article for more information on how to update the Data Configuration Settings.
What does one "unit" of data look like for each source?
GradeScores: One "unit" of data is one grade per student per course per term.
To use, the fact table (grades.DW_factGradeScores) should be joined to:
- Grade (grades.DW_dimGrade using GradeKEY),
- Grade Period (grades.DW_dimGradePeriod using GradePeriodKEY),
- Term (dw.DW_dimTerm using TermKEY)
- Student (dw.DW_dimStudent using StudentKEY),
- School (dw.DW_dimSchool using SchoolKEY),
- Class (dw.DW_dimClass using ClassKEY),
- Staff (dw.DW_dimStaff using StaffKEY)
Optionally, you can add student Enrollments (dw.DW_dimEnrollment) using the EnrollmentKEY and Program Enrollments (dw.DW_dimProgramCombination and dw.DW_dimProgramEnrollment) using the ProgramCombinationKEY and ProgramEnrollmentKEY if you are interested in disaggregating assessment performance by grade level or program enrollments status at the time the assessment was taken. For grades data, we also support a join to student Class Enrollments (dw.DW_dimClassEnrollment), which allows you to review grades for Withdrawn vs Completed classes using the ClassEnrollmentStatus field.
To obtain grade values for a student, join to the Grade table (grades.DW_dimGrade) and use the field GradeName. This table also supports the distinctions between Overall or Assignment grades (GradeScoreType field) and In Progress or Final grades (GradeStatus field). Within the Grade Scores table (grades.DW_factGradeScores) we can also populate PercentGrade, GPAGrade, GPAWeight, GPAWeightedGrade, AttemptedCreditHours, and EarnedCreditHours if those data are available in your SIS.
Assignment Grades Data Block
The Assignment Grades data block offers all the features of the Grades data block with two additional tables:
- Assignment: Metadata about assignments including: Assigned Date; Assignment Description; Assignment Name; Assignment Weight; Due Date; and Extra Credit
- Assignment Flag: If data is populated in your student information system, use this table to track key flags including: Late; Exempt; Missing; Cheated; Dropped; Incomplete; Turned In
What else should I know?
- This data block is very large, and therefore, performance will be slower. It includes one row per student, per course-section, per grading period, per assignment. This is a lot of data!
- If you don’t need to view assignment-level grading detail, use the Grades data block instead.
Schoolzilla Starter Tableau Data Sources
What Tableau Data Sources are available for the Grades Data Block?
The Grades Data Block includes three main data sources. If you are a Data Warehouse customer, you can use these data sources to build custom reports.
- Grades 2.0 - Component Grades, In Progress Grades, Final Grades, and Standards Grades
- Assignment Grades - grades for each assignment
- Grade Snapshot 2.0 - Take snapshots over your Grades Data Block on a schedule you set so that you can see how In Progress, Final, Standards, and Components grades have changed over time.