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RISC is a very flexible system that can be applied to various uses within the school. The Form Letters Module itself can be used to produce letters to send to an individual student's parents on any subject. With user-definable field names, the database can track whatever you need tracked involving your students. Thinking about RISC in that sense makes it a very useful tool.

One specific use some schools have applied RISC to is Merit and Commendations. It can be done a part of the same database used for students at-risk and discipline management, but since it is so different a set of data, and since there are often different people in the school that look after each aspect, it might make more sense to maintain two separate RISC databases. One to concentrate on risk and discipline and the other on merit and commendations. Your school-wide license of RISC means you can do this right now!

So, how do you create a separate RISC database?

  • Install RISC into another folder or on another computer
  • Configure the new copy of RISC and import student data from your Admin system
  • Define the Category, Type and Status Lookups appropriately
  • Start entering Merit and Commendation data!

One way of defining the Lookups and entering records:

One common way of tracking merit is to record a current level of merit for all students. When a student reaches say 5 (five) commendations, a merit certificate is awarded and the level is reset to 0 (zero). This process can easily be done with RISC.

Set the Contact Category to the Certificate Stage and list the different merit certificate stages - say Bronze, Silver, Gold etc. The Type field can be used to track the different forms of merit, eg. Homework, Classwork, Sports etc.

The Status field is used to record the level of merit achieved for the particular merit type. In the Status field, just list Level 0, Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 etc.

When entering contacts, each student only has one contact for each merit type you define. If student John Smith gets a commendation for homework achievement, his record is updated to show a Status change from Level 0 to Level 1. A date for the change should be entered into the Contact description. When John next gets a commendation for homework, that same contact is recalled and is updated to Level 2 with a new date added to the Description. When John reaches Level 5, a Merit Certificate is awarded (you can print these as a form letter from inside RISC!) and his Status is adjusted to Level 0 and the Certificate Stage is incremented to the next type of certificate.

Searches of the RISC database can find all students with various Levels, and reports can be printed.

Try it out for yourself!

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Contents:

 

The RISC Form
Letters Market

 

How to Track
Merit Using RISC

 

USB WebCams for RISC PhotoCapture!