Designed to keep High School and Middle School Administrators, Teachers, and Students informed, the School Island newsletter provides the latest news in web-based instructional technology. This month the School Island newsletter spotlights year-end administrative tasks. Also in this newsletter ... learn about recent updates, including the eagerly awaited Spanish and French courses as well as upcoming summer conferences and workshops! Last, but not least, we extend our best wishes to all students on their final exams as well as a happy and safe summer to all!!!

As the 2006-2007 school year draws to a close, the School Island team would like to thank you for being part of the School Island family! If you have not already renewed your School Island subscriptions for 2007-2008, please contact your Sales Representative about your order.

During the summer, we will be performing standard account management procedures, which are necessary to prepare for the new school year. Session and account data for the "old" school year must make way for the "new." We are making some changes to the standard clean-up procedure this year concerning the status of student accounts, so please review the following details carefully. If you feel that this procedure does not meet the needs of your school, please contact School Island Technical Services at support@schoolisland.com or (631)331-7384 to make other arrangements.

Special Note to Summer School Users

For most customers, the terms of the licensing agreement allow you to use School Island for summer school. Please contact School Island Technical Services at support@schoolisland.com or (631) 331-7384 if you need to transfer student or teacher accounts, or to accommodate other special summer school situations.

Note: Data from summer school sessions will not be saved once the new school year accounts are created.

Special Note to All Customers Using Add-Multiple

Carefully read the section below regarding deactivation of student accounts. Once the student accounts are deactivated, the Add Multiple feature will be disabled until the old accounts are deleted. Please contact School Island Technical Services when you are ready to upload your accounts so that we can delete the "old" account data and re-enable the Add Multiple option.

Managing End of Year Reports

At the end of June, School Island will generate end of year reports, which summarize the student and course usage for the 2006-2007 school year. This data is useful for tracking student progress and performing correlation studies with test results. These reports will be archived and posted on the Student Usage Report page, which is accessible to Administrator account holders.

Deactivating "Old" Student Accounts

Approximately two weeks prior to the start of the new school year, all student accounts will be deactivated. Students will not have access to their School Island sessions. Students attempting to sign into School Island will receive a message that their accounts are deactivated.

Teacher and Administrator accounts will remain active. School Island classes will remain intact, and teachers will be able to view assignments and other reports. Teachers will also be able to create new assignments. However, teachers will not be able to add students to classes or make assignments to classes or students.

Student data from the 2006-2007 school year will not actually be deleted until we receive from you the new enrollment data for the 2007-2008 school year or confirmation from you that you intend to enroll students using the Add Multiple feature.

Pre-Enrollment of Student Accounts for the New School Year

As soon as you have student data available, we can begin the enrollment process in which new student accounts are created for the 2007-2008 school year. School Island generates student account IDs based on a pre-assigned prefix for your school and the student name. Create an Excel file with the following columns and send it to School Island Technical Services (support@schoolisland.com):

• Column 1: Last name
• Column 2: First name
• Column 3: Preferred School Island ID (optional).
  Note: Some schools prefer to base their School Island IDs on their network IDs or other unique identification information. If this data is omitted, then School Island will automatically generate an IDs based on a prefix for your school and the students' names.
• Column 4: Grade level or year of graduation.
  Note: Many schools find this field convenient for sorting downloaded report data.
• Column 5: Unique school-issued ID number (optional but preferred). To provide account management flexibility for future new features.

For districts with multiple schools, please use a separate file for students and teachers (see below) at each school. School Island Technical Services will create the accounts and notify you by e-mail when it has been completed. You will be responsible for distributing the School Island IDs to your students.

Note: Once the student accounts for 2007-2008 are enrolled, all student accounts will now be active. Students will be able to sign into School Island and access their session. Teachers will be able to delete old classes, organize new classes and make assignments to students/classes.

Updating Teacher Accounts

Returning teachers will most likely want to keep the same account IDs and carry over assignments that they created during the previous school year. However, retirements, departures, transfers, and new hires also necessitate some teacher account maintenance. At the beginning of the new school year, sign into your School Island Administrator account; go to the Accounts page; and manually delete each teacher account no longer needed. Create any new teacher accounts as needed from the Accounts page.

If the number of new teachers is large, send us an Excel file with teacher first and last names in separate columns. For districts with multiple schools, please use a separate file for students and teachers at each school. School Island Technical Services will create the accounts and notify you by e-mail when it has been completed. You will be responsible for distributing the School Island IDs to your teachers.

Note: Clearly mark this file as being teacher names rather than student names so that we will create the correct type of accounts.

If you have any questions or concerns about the end of year procedures, please contact School Island Technical Services at support@schoolisland.com or (631)331-7384.

New Features/Updates

The Time Period drop-down list that is available on the following reports has been updated. It now includes all weeks from 1 to 10:

• Student Pages: Cumulative Report
• Teacher Pages: Class Cumulative Report
• Teacher Pages: Teacher Assessment Reports
  

School Island is pleased to announce the preliminary release of courses in Spanish and French! Like many current textbooks and curriculum resources, these courses are organized around topics. The initial release consists of grammar, vocabulary, listening, and reading questions on the following topics:

• Greetings, Leave-taking, Personal Information, Time, Weather, and Seasons
• Technology and Communications
• Food

Additional topics will be released over the next several months.

The Spanish and French courses are designed for students ranging from middle school (basic level questions) through high school (intermediate and advanced level questions). Vocabulary and grammar questions support and complement reading and listening questions. By integrating all of these levels into a single course, even students who are preparing for advanced examinations (such at the NYS Regents) will have the opportunity to review topics typically covered in lower grade levels.

A particularly exciting component of these courses is the introduction of the listening passages. Students will actually be able to play the audio passages while answering the questions. For use of this feature, we strongly recommend that students work on these courses in a computer lab setting with availability of headphones.

If you have any questions or comments regarding these two new foreign language courses, please contact School Island Technical Support Services (support@schoolisland.com or 631-331-7384) . We would love to hear from you!

June 26-29, 2007 at Williamsburg Marriott, Williamsburg, VA

The VA Association of Secondary School Principals, working with the Virginia Department of Education, have planned an exciting meeting of Middle School and High School Principals and Assistant Principals on June 26 -29, 2007 at the Williamsburg Marriott, 50 Kingsmill Road, Williamsburg, Virginia. Castle Software has been invited to exhibit at the workshop and will be represented by Scott Fischer, our GM for Sales and Training. Planners hope to see more than 700 school building administrators representing Middle and High Schools throughout Virginia's 134 public school divisions. This one day Exhibit Show will begin with a continental breakfast at 7:30 a.m. and will include a lunch at mid-day as well as a social later in the afternoon - all scheduled to be held in the main Exhibit Hall. Those interested in attending this conference are encouraged to contact Nancy B. Hayden, VASSP Member Services, 4909 Cutshaw Avenue, Richmond, Virginia 23230 at (804)355-2777 (telephone) or (804)355-4262 (fax) or to visit http://www.vak12ed.edu/vdoe/prinsmemos/2007/ems005.html

July 29 - August 2 at Wells College, Aurora, NY

Networking with other math educators is the purpose of the AMTNYS Summer Workshop. To be held on the grounds of Wells College, located on beautiful Cayuga Lake (the longest of New York State's Fingerlakes), organizers are planning small sessions as well as several keynote speakers. More importantly, you'll be able to share your classroom experiences with one of our School Island team members. To learn more, visit their website at http://www.amtnys.org.

July 13 and 14 in Chantily VA

School Island is also available to the Home School parents and tutors who work with students one-on-one. As such, we'll be in attendance at the Northern Virginia Home Education Conference. To be held from July 13-14 in Chantily, VA, this conference will feature an exciting venue for Home School parents and tutors to meet members of the School Island team. The main goal of this conference is to introduce parents who are thinking about home-schooling or to keep veteran home-schoolers abreast of innovative technology used to help their children learn. If you're in the neighborhood, check out this conference and be sure to look for us! To learn more about this conference, go to http://www.novaconference.net.

If you have any comments, ideas for future articles, or suggestions for a School Island product feature or enhancement, please send it to support@schoolisland.com. We would love to hear from you!