Hi Marie
Could you help me understand the best way to code students in SMS? I understand they need to be coded correctly at the beginning of a quarter in SMS. But my question regards students who may change a code say mid-way through the quarter. They may start out as 76 in full time school component of VE. They then gain employment of 20 hours/week. They now can be a 77 with JT coding. Or it could also be the other way around. Do I need to make changes in the middle of the quarter or just wait until the next quarter starts?
I know the guidelines say to put in the coding at registration but I thought I would get your advice about what to do if a student changes during a quarter.
Thank you
These are great questions that arise due to the ever changing nature of the students we serve. Many parents transition between intent and income source during a typical year, however we can only report what we are aware of at the point of enrollment. We’ve provided guidance within the WorkFirst Delivery Agreement (for FY11, pages 18 & 19), and additional guidance can be obtained from the materials (link below) Carmen Stewart provided during her coding workshop (December, 09).
Most students will remain in the same Work-Attend code assigned for the entire year. It is not our intent to have you change coding at various time during a quarter. It is important to note that the post-quarter data rollup from SMS will identify the Work-Attend coding in place at the end of the quarter. If a student begins the quarter in a full time program as TANF (coded 76) and you modify the code mid-quarter due to an income change (75), we will capture that student as the last entered Work-Attend code. In this case your quarter end report would identify you served a former TANF (75) and will have no record of the college serving the TANF recipient. I’d suggest coding the student in the new Work-Attend classification at the onset of subsequent quarters. This practice should best represent who you are serving at the point of enrollment. Please let me know if you should have additional questions.
Thank you,
Marie Bruin
360-704-4360 (
Coding Workshop material-
http://www.sbctc.ctc.edu/docs/datareporting/2009dec-student-coding-workshop.pdf
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