4 March OnSIS for Inspected Private Schools

Overview: March OnSIS for Inspected Private Schools

All private schools are required to provide statistical information to the ministry regarding student enrolment, staff, courses of study and (for inspected secondary schools) credits granted and diplomas issued. This information is collected in the Ministry’s OnSIS application, and the edsembli SIS can assist with the collection of this data. 

Aggregate vs elemental data:

Two types of data are collected by OnSIS:

Aggregate data is a summary of information by category. For example, the number of children in each grade, by age or by gender. Specific, identifying information for each child is not collected. Aggregate data is collected for students who cannot be issued Ministry Ontario Education Numbers (OENs). This includes all private elementary students and students attending non-inspected private secondary schools.

Elemental data is more specific and includes information with respect to individual students, educators or classes. In most cases, the elemental data collected from private schools is the same as that collected from publicly funded schools. Elemental data is collected for all students attending inspected private secondary schools.

Private elementary schools:   

Private elementary students are not issued OENs from the Ministry of Education, and therefore, OnSIS is only able to collect aggregate student data (e.g., totals of students rather than specific student names and information).  The data is collected once a year, on October 31st.   

The enrolment/transfers/retirements/admissions statistics are generally based on the students’ enrolment information from November 1 of the previous year, until October 31st of the current academic year.  Therefore, past students are considered. Educator class and subject assignment information is collected on all 3 count dates: October 31, March 31, and June 30. If the elementary school is combined with the private inspected secondary school, all educator data is reported via the secondary school submissions.  If the elementary private school is not combined with the inspected secondary school, the elementary school must submit educator data on all 3 count dates.

Elementary private schools will have their own submission period called October private elementary school. If needed, the private elementary school will also have the submission periods called March private elementary school and June private elementary schools.  

This chart summarizes the OnSIS batch files required for elementary private schools:

 When the October submission period is opened, the 'Enrolment, Transfers, Retirements and Admissions' section on the OnSIS website will be pre-populated with the enrolment at the end of the previous year.  This number cannot be changed as it represents the elementary enrolment on October 31 of the previous year).  The batch file is sending the transfers, retirements and admissions since November 1 last year until October 31 of this year.  Last year's number, minus the transfers and retirements, plus the admissions, will mathematically determine the enrolment on October 31 of this year. E.g. Enrolment October 31 last year - transfers - retirements + admissions = enrolment October 31 this year.    

Fortunately, if the school is configured properly, only the submission periods and options that apply to the school will appear in the SIS. Use the cards to guide you through the private elementary school submission period (or periods as explained above).  Below is an example of a private elementary school that is not combined with an inspected private secondary school, and therefore the Educator assignment info card is available (to generate the educator class and subject batch files).   

Private secondary schools:

At this time, all private secondary schools using the edsembli SIS are inspected. Non-inspected private secondary schools will operate just like private elementary schools that are not combined with an inspected secondary school (e.g., aggregate info in October, and education class and subject assignment info in October, March, and June).

Inspected private secondary schools will report data to OnSIS just like Ontario publicly funded secondary schools; however, there are some programs that don’t apply to private schools and therefore the corresponding batch files do not apply. 

Inspected private secondary schools do not report the following info:

• Supervised Alternative Learning (SAL)
• Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) program & certifications
• Special education  
• Course calendar and student option sheets (March)
• Suspension/expulsion info

Inspected private secondary schools, combined with an elementary private school, will have the option to submit the educator subject assignment batch file, which does not apply to regular secondary schools.

Inspected private secondary schools will see the same submission periods as publicly funded secondary schools; however, the batch file options that don’t apply will be removed. The OnSIS menu will contain 3 submission periods:

• October secondary school
• March secondary school
• June secondary school

Fortunately, if the school is configured properly, only the submission periods and options that apply to the school will appear in the SIS. Use the cards to guide you through the submission periods. Below is an example of the March submission period for a private secondary school.
 

Configuring your private school: 

Every private school should be configured properly so that it identified as a private school. Secondary private schools can be configured so that they are flagged as an inspected secondary school, and if appropriate, identified as a private secondary school that has elementary students as well.  Use Setup > School > Configuration to configure the school to ensure that the correct options appear for the school.

Including/excluding students:

If the school has both elementary and secondary students, ensure the student’s entry date to secondary school has the correct date. If the entry to secondary school date is after the count date (e.g. a future date), the student will be considered an elementary student and will be excluded from the secondary OnSIS reports.

Similarly, if an elementary student has a future entry date to elementary school, the student is excluded from the OnSIS reporting (OnSIS will allow students under age 4 as of December 31 so this field may be used to exclude these students).   

Elementary schools may also exclude students in specific grades if easier than setting the entry date to elementary school (e.g. students in grade N (Nursery) can be omitted when creating the aggregate reports).

Sometimes schools create a student board resident status with a ministry code of 00, and students assigned this status will be omitted (e.g. foreign exchange students not on the register). These students are excluded from all Ministry reports, not just OnSIS. 

Educators must be updated in OnSIS:

When creating batch files that include the teacher of the class, the teacher’s MEN# in the SIS is used to identify the teacher in the file. Every educator in the SIS must have a MEN# in their staff record. OnSIS also requires the teacher’s position code in the batch file, and this code must match the code in OnSIS.  By updating the educators in OnSIS before getting extracts, the SIS can use the matching position code found in the extract. See Update educators in OnSIS for more info. 

Get extract files from OnSIS before submitting batch files:

Before creating any batch files in the SIS, extract files need to be created in the Ministry’s OnSIS application, and these files need to be saved in edsembli’s file manager. Extracts are used to determine whether to send an add or update instruction in the batch file created by the SIS.  See Get extracts from OnSIS for more info.

Updating data in OnSIS using the ‘Create/Upload/Process’ cycle:

Data in OnSIS is updated through the process of creating batch files in the SIS, uploading those batch files to OnSIS, and then processing the results generated by OnSIS (analyzing the errors/warnings). These 3 basic steps are repeated until all the data is submitted and is accurate. Since files need to be transferred between the SIS and OnSIS, the steps may seem a little more complicated until you are comfortable uploading and downloading files. See the OnSIS Important concepts section for info on Updating data in OnSIS using the ‘Create/Upload/Process’ cycle. Depending on the size of the school and complexity of the data, some private elementary schools may opt to enter the aggregate data directly into OnSIS instead of following these steps.

Sign-off in OnSIS:

After all the data has been updated in OnSIS, all the errors and warnings have been addressed to the best of your knowledge, you must log into OnSIS and start the OnSIS sign-off process for the submission period.  For more information on the sign-off process in OnSIS, see Sign-off in OnSIS.