School Settings

School settings control how grading, attendance, and other features work across your entire school. Only administrators can modify these settings.

Accessing School Settings

To access school settings:

1. Click Settings in the sidebar
2. Select the settings category you want to configure

Settings are organized into sections:

• School: Basic school information
• Grades: Grading scales, default categories, and assignment labels
• Attendance: Sections and absence codes
• Collaboration: How families can view and participate in comments
• Members: Team management
• Invitations: Pending invitations
• Billing: Subscription management

Editing School Information

To update your school's basic information:

1. Go to Settings > School
2. Edit fields:
   • School name
   • Address
   • Timezone
3. Save changes

The timezone affects how attendance section times are interpreted.

Configuring Grading Scales

Define how percentages convert to letter grades and GPA:

1. Go to Settings > Grades
2. Find the Grading Scale section
3. Add or edit grade levels:
   • Letter: The letter grade (A, B, C, etc.)
   • GPA: The GPA value (4.0, 3.0, etc.)
   • Min %: Minimum percentage for this grade
   • Max %: Maximum percentage for this grade
4. Save changes

Example grading scale:

Assignment Labels

Configure the labels teachers can apply to grades:

1. In Settings > Grades, find Assignment Labels
2. Add labels with:
   • Name: What the label represents (e.g., "Missing", "Late")
   • Color: Visual identifier (red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, indigo, violet, purple, pink)
3. Save

Labels appear in the gradebook and help teachers provide quick visual feedback.

Default Categories

Default categories are grading categories automatically applied to new classrooms. This saves teachers time by pre-configuring common category structures.

1. In Settings > Grades, find Default Categories
2. Add categories with:
   • Name: Category name (e.g., "Homework", "Tests", "Quizzes")
   • Weight: Percentage weight for grade calculation
   • Color: Visual identifier
3. Save

When a teacher creates a new classroom, these categories are automatically added. Teachers can modify categories for individual classrooms as needed.

Configuring Family Comments

Family comment settings control how guardians can participate in conversations across grades, attendance records, and general student comments.

1. Go to Settings > Collaboration
2. Configure the policy for Grades, Attendance, and Students
3. Choose whether comments can be shared with families and whether families can reply or start new conversations
4. Save changes

Each subject has its own policy, so families can have different participation levels for different types of school information.

Setting Up Absence Codes

Absence codes categorize why students are absent:

1. Go to Settings > Attendance
2. Find the Absence Codes section
3. Add codes:
   • Name: Description of the absence type
   • Is Excused: Whether this counts as an excused absence
   • Is Default: Auto-selected when marking absent
4. Save

Suggested absence codes:

Configuring Sections

Sections represent class periods or schedule blocks:

1. In Settings > Attendance, find Sections
2. Add sections with:
   • Name: Period name (e.g., "Period 1", "Block A")
   • Days: Which days this section meets
   • Start/End times: When the period runs
3. Drag to reorder sections
4. Save

Sections enable:

• Attendance tracking by period
• Automatic section suggestion based on current time
• Student schedule generation

Managing the Academic Year

The current academic year affects:

• Which classrooms appear by default
• Student enrollment views
• Historical data filtering

To change the displayed year, use the year selector in the interface. Past years' data is preserved and accessible.

Subscription and Billing

For information about managing your subscription and payment methods, see Billing.

SimpleGrader uses usage-based pricing at $1.50 per active student per month, with your first 5 students free. There are no feature tiers—all schools have access to all features.

Settings Best Practices