Iowa End of Year and Rollover Information (2023)

Below is the list of required and recommended actions for Iowa districts to complete related to the myIGDIs, FastBridge and Panorama Student Success systems, as the school year comes to a close.

End of Year Checklist

Important Dates:

  • May (on/before the last day of school) - mark all interventions in Panorama Student Success as Completed and delete any static or smart groups not needed for next school year
  • May 26th - Due date to select FastBridge rollover date (One FAST District Manager per district)
  • June-July - Export FastBridge reports not available after rollover, as needed (optional)
  • July 7 (or after) - Set student information system (SIF agent) to send 23/24 school year data (AFTER SRI work is completed)
  • July 7-9th - Early FastBridge rollover date, if selected
  • Mid-July - Reports become limited (frozen) in Panorama Student Success and will not resume updating until Student Success rollover is complete (date TBA). This includes student progress monitoring reporting.
  • July 28-30 - Default FastBridge rollover date, unless early or late rollover chosen 
  • August 1-15 - Select your district's default assessments for the next school year in CASA
  • August 15 - myIGDIs rollover date. The recommended timeline for completing end-of-year activities is by the end of the current school year, to be ready for summer rollover
  • August 18-20 - Late FastBridge rollover date, if selected

General EOY

Action Required (Building Principal and Superintendent): Team Discussions and Default Assessments Selections

  1. Team discussions - We recommend working with your administrative team now to discuss your default assessments for next year and to coordinate a plan for timely completion of this task. If any changes in administration is expected over the summer, please be sure to make those changes in the School Information Update application in EdPortal with any changes to ensure the CASA application is ready in August.
  2. Default assessment selection - Building principals will select the school's default assessment for literacy and math in the Consolidated Accountability and Support Application (CASA) between August 1 - 15. Superintendents will then have two weeks to validate the selection.

More detailed information will be shared by the Iowa Department of Education CASA team when the entry date nears.

Action Required: Report Changes for Next Year

Report changes in the following via the appropriate system listed

  • Changing student information system (SIS)
    If your district is changing student information systems (SIS) for the next school year, please submit a support ticket in Fastbridge, Panorama Student Success, or email connor.hood@iowa.gov. Communicating the intended change ASAP is recommended so we can work with you to set up the new data connection.
  • Changing district email domain
    If your district is changing email domains, please let us know via a support ticket. We can walk you through the steps to ensure access to the system and resources during the transition. Changing email domains can break user permissions and rosters and must be planned carefully.
  • Changing building and/or grade configurations
    If you are changing building and/or grade configurations, etc. please make sure that you enter the changes ASAP in the School Information Update application under the Iowa Education Portal. Also, make sure that your building name and grade setup in your district's student information system matches the new configuration. FastBridge uses the building names to identify buildings, so spelling and format is critical.

Action Recommended: Preparing for Summer School 

See: Iowa Summer School in FastBridge and Student Success

myIGDIs

The summer rollover date for myIGDIs is August 15th. The recommended timeline for completing end-of-year activities (linked below) is by the end of the current school year, to be ready for summer rollover

See: myIGDIs End-of-Year Activities

FastBridge

Action Suggested: Confirm District FastBridge Rollover Date

Renaissance (the new FastBridge parent company) will likely send a few different emails about this year's FastBridge rollover. In general, the ONLY instruction Iowa users should follow in those emails is to select a rollover date. Remember, Iowa is set up different from nationwide FastBridge users. If additional action steps are needed by Iowa users, we will add them in this article.

  • Instructions you may see that do not apply to Iowa users:
    • Updating default screening windows (Iowa districts do not set their own)
    • Master Account Administrators/MAAs (Iowa doesn't have those)
    • Do not enabling roster sync, even though it may be included in the instructions from FastBridge. Iowa does not enable district sync in FastBridge, however, you will need to work with your student information system manager to ensure that your SIF agent is set to send the new school year data and that data entry (including student schedules) has been completed for the new school year before the data will populate in FastBridge.

FastBridge District Managers: Please work with your district team to select the appropriate rollover date. Multiple submissions will override all previous submissions. The date selected will be for the whole district and should be after summer school has ended, if PM will be collected during summer school. Collaborate and communicate to ensure that only ONE rollover selection response is submitted for the district.   Below are the rollover date options for this year; it would be a good idea to begin your team discussions regarding selecting a date now. If you do not select a date, your district will be rolled over on the default (primary) rollover date. No matter which rollover date is selected, your student data will not populate in FastBridge after rollover until your district's SIF agent is set to send next year's student data (not just enter it).

2023 FastBridge Rollover Dates

  • July 7-9th: Early Alternate rollover date
  • July 28-30: Primary rollover date unless otherwise chosen 
  • August 18-20: Late Alternate rollover date

How to select your rollover date

In FastBridge, on the District Manager tab, you'll see the 'Action needed!' alert. Click More, select the desired district rollover date, and click Save.

Rollover Reminders

The Iowa support team will handle most of the new school year setup steps for you but here are a few quick reminders of things that you may see in FastBridge instructions that are not intended for their Iowa users.

  • DO NOT upload a roster file, as may be indicated in communications from FastBridge. Iowa rosters will continue to be managed as a part of the regular automated rostering process already in place using your student information system. We will be in contact with your district to coordinate the student information system and SIF rollover process, if necessary.
  • DO NOT change the screening window or screening period dates. Those will be set up for the entire state. See Iowa: Screening Windows
  • DO NOT change assessment definitions. They will already be set up for each district. However, if you have prior assessment selections you would like to remove (such as earlyReading in upper grades), please use the support ticket system BEFORE the system roll-over and we will help. This must be done immediately after the rollover. 
  • Only districts that purchase additional services directly from FastBridge may need to complete the end user license agreement. Most Iowa schools do not have a Master Account Administrator (MAA) because the FastBridge literacy assessment service was purchased by the Iowa Department of Education and/or optional K-8 math/behavior through contract with the Area Education Agency. Therefore, most districts do not have to worry about the End User License Agreement.
  • For a full list of Iowa 'What NOT to change" see: A newbie (& veteran) guide to system and process differences for Iowa
  • It can take a week (possibly more) for the complete rollover process and population of student data. Student data is populated using the data entry in the district's student information system, which requires the district SIF be rolled forward to send the new school year data and the enrollment and scheduling data entry for the new school year be completed. See also: Iowa: Back-to-School Checklist

Optional: Export FastBridge Reports

There are certain FastBridge reports that districts may prefer to retain, as the current year's data will not be available in report format (with graphical content) after the roll over. Those reports are listed below.

Individual student literacy, assessment and progress monitoring data/graphs will continue to be available in Iowa's MTSS data system, Student Success after roll over and will follow students that move to another Iowa district. Nothing will need to be exported from Student Success.

FastBridge Reports Not Available After Rollover

Once rollover has occurred, the data from the previous school year will be archived and will only be accessible through some reports. See Accessing Data from Previous Years for more details.  

Historical data will be available through the Data Download and as line item or summary data in some reports, but if you want to retain graphical reports with tables, graphs and color-coded scoring info, you should retain those reports by printing or saving them as a PDF before your selected rollover date.

  • Screening to Intervention (S2i) Reports
  • Impact Report
  • Group Growth Report
  • Detailed Group Report
  • Individual Skills Reports
  • Group Skills Report
  • Family Report

Panorama Student Success

As the school year comes to a close, we recommend taking the following steps to ensure your students' data is up-to-date and ready for the team that will be supporting them next year. At the bottom of this page, you'll find a communication plan that includes a sample template for you to share with your team.

Action Required: Complete any interventions that you have started for students.

You can easily do this by navigating to your My Plans page or notifications, where you can see all of the intervention plans you are responsible for updating. Any interventions that are not completed will show up as "In Progress" on the student's profile page until they are completed. Once the next school year starts you will not be able to update or add progress and it can be difficult to complete the plan if the student has changed buildings or teachers - only someone on the intervention team who still has access to the student can Complete a plan. Completing interventions and leaving notes about how a student progressed, even if a goal was not met, is a good way to ensure that the students' future teachers will have the information necessary to support them. 

How to complete interventions

Individual (not group) Intervention Plans

  • On the Students tab, select Intervention Plans from the left menu.
  • Click the Actions button for the appropriate student and select Complete plan in the drop down menu.

Group Intervention Plans

Each student must be marked as Complete individually within a group plan. There is no option to mark the whole group as complete.

  • On the Students tab, go to Group Plans on the left menu.
  • Click on the appropriate intervention plan group.
  • Click the student's name to expand the view and then click the More Actions next to that student and select Complete plan from the drop down menu.

Action Suggested: Clean up your static and smart groups. 

If you have any static groups that you will not need to reference next year, such as a Lunch Bunch or extracurricular group, you may want to delete them to have a clean slate for next year. If you would like to keep the groups for reference, you may want to add the school year to the title so you can tell that the group is not one that you need to reference regularly. Smart groups should continue to update once the new school year starts, but you may want to review the criteria you have set to decide if it will still be important to track next year. Learn more about managing groups here.

Log any supports you put in place for students before the end of the year.

Support notes are tied to the current school year and are always available on a student's profile. If you are supporting a student in any way, such as a phone call home, you can log this support note now so that educators who visit the student's profile in the future can see what supports were provided. 

Note: Although, your student data (including academics, attendance, behavior) will not be updated over the summer, you can continue to use Student Success when preparing for the new school year. To view previous year's data, you can use the year dropdown in the top right corner of a page to view snapshots of data from the end of that school year.

Communication Plan 

If you're a district or school leader hoping to share these recommendations with your team, you can use this email template. Make a copy of this template to ensure you and your team are able to prepare your data in Student Success for the next school year.

End of Year Analysis

Check out the recording of the End of Year Analysis webinar to learn how to utilize key pages and views to evaluate the health of your MTSS system this year as well as reflect on practices & outcomes across the school year.

Still need help? Contact Us Contact Us