The Quarterly Work and Learning Performance Report
The Connecting Activities Quarterly "Work and Learning Performance Report" is submitted 15 days after the end of each quarter (or on the following Monday if a weekend). The report provides a count of students and employers participating in Work and Learning experiences, along with a count of Work-Based Learning Plans and hours of instruction. The report is cumulative from July 1st to the end of the quarter.
To run the report, open the Massachusetts School to Career database to the Report Menu and choose the Work and Learning Performance Report (Summary). Fill in the quarter and the region as needed and click the yellow button to run the report. The program will calculate the figures for the report. The routine takes a few minutes or longer if you have a large quantity of data.
The Quarterly Report uses the following fields. Before running quarterly reports, please take a few minutes to look over your data to make sure everything is complete.
Student ID. All students must have a unique student ID. This ID must be used consistently if the student has more than one job or internship.
Activity Name, Type and Work and Learning Level. The name of the Activity and the Activity Code (A1: Internship/Coop Placement) must be filled in. The Quarterly Report includes just the activities coded A1: Internship/Coop Placements (but the narrative report can include information about other activities).
MCAS Scores Worksheet. For students to be counted in Work and Learning Levels A, B, or C, the MCAS Scores Worksheet must be filled in. (You need at least the performance level (F, NI, etc.) for at least one test.)
Work and Learning Level. The Work and Learning Level is filled in automatically based on the data in the MCAS Scores Worksheet and the answer to the question "Is Integrated W/L (Level C)
Summer/School Year. The Summer/School Year field is filled in automatically based on the Start Date and End Date fields.
Paid/Unpaid. The paid/unpaid field is filled in automatically based on the Pay field. Pay should be zero for unpaid internships and should have a wage for paid jobs and internships. Enter an approximate hourly wage for jobs with stipends.
Pay. This field is not required for the quarterly report but is required for the qualifying wages report. If exact pay is unknown, you may enter minimum wage. If students receive a stipend, you may estimate an approximate hourly wage (which may be less than minimum wage).
Hours per Week. This field is not required for the quarterly report but is required for the qualifying wages report. This field should be a number (such as 15) rather than a range (such as 10-20).
Start Date. This field is used to determine whether the internship is in the current program year and whether the job is summer or school year.
End Date. This field is not required for the quarterly report but is required for the qualifying wages report. If this field is left blank, the qualifying wages report assumes the last day of the fiscal year.
Employer Name and ID. The Employer ID and Name must be filled in.
Employer Type. The employer type (Private, Public, Nonprofit) must be filled in.
Methods for reviewing the data include:
- On the placement screen, look in the upper right section of the screen for an orange box that asks "Is this record W&L for FY2008 (through 9/30/2007)" (or the relevant time period)? This is automatically filled in by the database, and if it says "Yes" then the placement is being counted in the quarterly report.
- Open the layout/report named "Internship List." Sort by student, start date, or employer and print this list. Look it over to spot any missing data.
- Use the layout called "Sort and Count Students" to find out how many individual students you have, compared to the number of placements. First, find all of the work and learning placements for the quarter. Then go to the "Sort and Count Students" layout and click to button to sort. Scroll to the top of the screen to see the count of records and the count of students.
- There is also a layout/report called "Check data for connecting activities report." This report lets you run a script that checks all the records for accuracy and prints a message if anything is not right. Some of the messages are just alerts about something that you should check (such as two different students with the same first and last name) while others are errors or omissions that you need to fix.
- You can also open any layout in the database using "View As Table" (available under View on the menubar) to easily review and sort records.
Understanding the data
- The report is based on the number of students (not the number of placements) and so therefore a student with more than one placement is counted once. If a student has a summer placement and a school year placement, they are counted once for summer, once for school year, and once total.
- The report counts work-based learning placements by looking at participation in activities with an "Activity Code" equal to "A1." The code "A1" should be used for all jobs, internships and co-operative education placements in the database.
- The quarterly report is cumulative, and is based on looking at placements with a start date between July 1 and the end of the quarter:
- 1st Quarter - July 1 - September 30
- 2nd Quarter - July 1 - December 31
- 3rd Quarter - July 1 - March 31
- 4th Quarter - July 1 - June 30
The quarterly report also includes a narrative description of Connecting Activities / School to Career activities in your region. If you use the Activities table to track a variety of School to Career / Connecting Activities programs (such as Career Fairs, Job Shadow Day, Employer Guest Speakers, Teacher Externships, etc.), you can use the Report menu to open and print the List of Activities. The List of Activities is simply a layout in the Activities file, which includes:
- The name and type of activity
- Number of students participating
- Number of employers participating
- Hours of instruction (if applicable)
- Description of the activity
This list can be included with the narrative report.