School years: setting up, publishing and starting a new year

Prepare next year as a draft, publish it to teachers, then start it to promote students and archive the old year.

Everything happens under Admin → School years. Office staff can view this page; Administrators make the changes.

Draft. Choose Set up a school year. Dates and terms are suggested from this year, moved forward. You can copy this year’s classes (with teachers and schedule, never students). Only Administrators and office staff can see a draft.
Publish. Teachers can then see next year’s classes and prepare. Nothing about this year changes.
Start. On or after the first day, choose Start this year… to see a preview of exactly what will happen, then confirm with your password.

What starting a year does

Archives the old year and its classes: records stay, and grades and attendance can no longer be changed.
Moves every student up one grade and graduates your top grade.
Withdraws students whose families answered “not returning” (you can turn this off in the preview).
Keeps students accepted through online enrollment for the new year in the grade they were accepted into.

Starting a year can’t be undone. Students aren’t put into the new classes automatically; enroll them from each class or student page.