Terms
The school year, cut into grading periods. Terms decide where assignments go, how term and final grades roll up, and when the dashboards call a day a school day.
Categories
How a classroom weighs its work. Default categories give every new classroom the school's starting split, and teachers adjust from there.
Grading scales
One table turns a percentage into a letter and a GPA. It shows up in the gradebook, on the student page, and on report cards and transcripts.
Sections
The periods a school runs. Sections give students a schedule, tell teachers which class is meeting now, and file attendance by period.
Attendance
One session per class, per period, per day. How teachers take it on the web and the phone, where each mark goes, and how the office watches the school.
Collaboration
Every way a teacher reaches a family: shared notes, announcements, notifications, and the family dashboard on the web and the phone.
Terms and sections describe the calendar: when the year is in session, and when each class meets. Attendance is what teachers write against that calendar. Categories and grading scales describe the arithmetic: how work is weighed, and what a percentage is called. Collaboration and permissions describe who sees what. Billing describes what the school pays, which depends only on how many students it keeps active.
Set up in that order. Terms first, because classrooms and assignments attach to them. Then the grading settings, so the first grade entered is already right. Then sections, once the timetable is known. Invite teachers, tune the Teacher role if the defaults do not fit, and bring families in last, after there is something for them to see.