Select a term to see a definition:
actual school days
All the days in a school year when school is actually in session. Holidays, non-teaching days, and other occasions when school is not in session are considered days off and are not used to calculate the number of actual school days in the school year or a reporting period.
Related information:
benchmark
A standard against which the achievements of a student, grade, school, or district are measured. It is the lowest level of performance that is considered acceptable.
Related information:
capacity
The number of available "seats" a program has for students to use. Capacity can be changed depending on the number of seats required by a school or district.
Related information:
characteristic
An attribute assigned to a student (e.g., gifted/talented, physically disabled, Title I). Several standard characteristics are included in Renaissance.
Related information:
class
One unit in a course. To be complete, classes need a lead teacher, enrolled students, and the products the class will use assigned. Classes that are missing any of this information are incomplete; they cannot use the software until they are complete.
Related information:
class enrollment
The assignment of one or more students to a specific class. A student can be enrolled in a school and not have any class enrollments, but a student enrolled in a class must be enrolled in the school that class takes place in.
Related information:
Clever
A digital learning platform for schools that integrates with Renaissance, and includes single sign-on (SSO), program rostering, and the Clever Portal.
Related information:
comma-separated value (CSV) file
A text file format that uses commas to separate values and new lines to separate records. CSV files store tabular data in plain text, where each line of the file typically represents one data record. Each record consists of the same number of fields, and these are separated by commas in the CSV file. These are often used to import/export Renaissance data.
Related information:
complete classes
Complete classes have a lead teacher, students enrolled, and products selected and assigned. These are the classes that can use your Renaissance products.
Incomplete classes are missing the teacher, students, or products. These classes cannot use your Renaissance products.
Related information:
consolidated reports
Reports specifically designed for district level administrators, district dashboard owners, district staff, school level administrators, and school staff to give them an overall picture of how entire districts/schools are performing.
Related information:
course
A container to help you structure and organize your classes: classes are added to courses. For example, there could be three different classes (first period, second period, and third period) in a single second-grade math course. Courses stay in the database from year to year; classes must be added or imported every year or copied from the previous school year.
Related information:
Custom Data Integration (CDI)
A service that integrates an external rostering service (such as Clever) with Renaissance's rostering.
Related information:
dashboard
A page that provides quick overviews of how specific schools, grades, groups, etc. are performing with regard to various goals and benchmarks. Compare with reports.
Renaissance includes several dashboards. For more information, click one of these links:
data
All of the information that Renaissance keeps track of, including information about the district, schools, personnel, courses, classes, and students.
Related information:
database
A set of stored data from a Renaissance site. For some types of data, it is possible to import data into Renaissance from an external database.
Related information:
day off
A day in which school is not in session, such as a holiday or a teacher in-service day. They are sometimes known as non-teaching days. Days off do not include weekends.
Related information:
deleted (erased)
- A deleted record is one that has been removed from the Renaissance database. The program no longer uses it and cannot access it.
- A deleted record cannot be reclaimed.
- Records for personnel, students, courses, and classes can be deleted.
Related information:
demographic group
A customized group made of students with similar properties, such as ethnicity, gender, and grade.
district
A geographical division with specified limits whose school(s) are administered by a local board of education.
Related information:
district dashboard owner
A user who has rights to run reports for any school in the district; by default, this is the only right this user has.
district level administrator
The head of a district (the district superintendent and/or assistant superintendent).
district screening window
Used by district level administrators and district staff to view assessment data at the district level in Schoozilla and Renaissance Analytics. A district screening window can include all schools in the district or a specific subset of schools. Note: District screening windows are not used in Renaissance reports; the "district screening windows" appearing on Renaissance reports are actually school screening windows that are tied to the district.
Related information:
district staff
Non-administrative personnel whose job functions may range across several schools in a district (e.g., personnel director, admissions director, district secretary).
enrollment
See class enrollment and school enrollment.
erased
See deleted (erased).
export file
A data file that has been exported from one program so that it can be imported into Renaissance.
Related information:
first/last day for students
The dates that students will actually be in school and attending classes during the school year. These dates are used to calculate scores (like grade placement for Star) to align precisely to a district's calendar.
Related information:
historical and growth expectation extracts
Two types of student data that can be exported from certain programs to CSV files:
- Historical: Useful for planning for a new school year, comparing predictions of students' performance on state tests with their actual test results, and identifying trends in performance and growth for students or teachers.
- Growth Expectation: Provides information that can be used for evaluating educator effectiveness or during data retreats with staff, as well as aiding with school year planning.
Related information:
incomplete classes
Incomplete classes are missing the teacher, students, or products. These classes cannot use your Renaissance products.
Complete classes have a lead teacher, students enrolled, and products selected/assigned. These are the classes that can use your Renaissance products.
Related information:
IP restrictions
Your Renaissance site has a list of authorized IP (Internet Protocol) addresses for the computers in your school or district, giving them access to it. IP restrictions can be set to prevent students from using Accelerated Reader, Star 360, and Star Custom from unauthorized computers.
Related information:
lead teacher
When you add team teachers for a class, you choose which teacher is the lead.
In classes that only have one teacher, that teacher is automatically the lead teacher.
Live Chat
A support feature that can be accessed from within Renaissance (although not by students). It can be used to find the answers to questions or to begin a live chat with the support staff.
Related information:
marking period
A span of time during a school year. Many reports for Renaissance products can be customized to show data from a particular marking period, and some products have goals based on marking periods. Marking periods can also be used to specify the duration of a class.
Related information:
monitor password
A security measure to prevent unauthorized student testing; when the relevant preference is set, a teacher or test monitor must enter a monitor password before a student is allowed to start a test or take a quiz.
Related information:
new school year wizards
Built-in software assistants that help users set up Renaissance for the first time or get Renaissance ready for a new school year.
Related information:
non-teaching days
See day off.
parent
The mother, father, or legal guardian(s) of a student.
Related information:
permission group
preference
Preferences are the settings for your Renaissance programs. Some preferences affect an entire school or district; other preferences are specific to a class or student.
Related information:
probable non-reader
A student who answers too many items on a Star Reading Enterprise test incorrectly and may be randomly guessing answers.
products
The individual programs that are used with Renaissance, such as Accelerated Reader 360, Accelerated Math Instructional Practice, and the Star products.
Related information:
record
A collection of data about an individual student or personnel member.
Related information:
report
A customized analysis of various pieces of Renaissance data, often including charts and graphs. Compare with dashboard.
Related information:
school
A building or group of buildings where classes are taught to students. A district is made up of schools located within a specified area that are all administered by a board of education.
Related information:
school assignment
The assignment of a personnel member to a school. Personnel members can be assigned to more than one school in a district.
Related information:
school enrollment
The assignment of a student to a specific school. A student can be enrolled in more than one school in a district.
Related information:
school level administrators
A personnel member who serves in an administrative capacity at a school (principal, assistant principal, intervention specialist, or librarian/reading coordinator).
school screening window
Similar to a district screening window, but the dates apply to individual schools instead of the entire district. Note: School screening windows are not the same as the assessment windows used in Star Phonics—see Administrator Tasks in Star Phonics for more information.
Related information:
school staff
Non-administrative personnel members other than teachers that are assigned to a school (e.g., school secretary, guidance counselor, athletic director).
school year
A single full-length school session, usually running from August/September of one calendar year to May/June of the following year. The starting and ending dates for a school year typically change from one calendar year to the next. School years are sometimes divided into quarters, semesters, and/or trimesters; summer sessions may also be considered a part of a school year.
Related information:
secure browser
A web browser or browser extension that prevents students from working outside the browser window during a Star assessment (blocking them from accessing the internet, taking screen captures, etc.).
Related information:
single sign-on (SSO)
An authentication scheme that allows a user to log in with a single ID to any of several related, yet independent, software systems (such as Renaissance and Clever).
Related information:
software update
Renaissance applies updates to your products to fix problems or add new features.
state ID
An ID number assigned to a student or personnel member by their state (sometimes used in addition to or in place of a Renaissance ID number).
Related information:
student
A pupil enrolled in one or more classes in a school. Students can be enrolled in more than one school in a district.
Related information:
student information system (SIS)
Student information systems provide capabilities for registering students in courses; documenting grading, transcripts of academic achievement and co-curricular activities, and the results of student assessment scores; forming student schedules; tracking student attendance; generating reports and managing other student-related data needs in an educational institution.
Related information:
subscription information
A list of the products registered for a school or district, along with the subscription dates.
summer school
A school session held outside of the typical Fall–Spring schedule. If a summer school session is held, it may affect how school calendars and school years are set up in Renaissance.
Related information:
supporting software
Third-party software that is used by some Renaissance products, such as Adobe Reader.
system status
The current status of the hardware and software a Renaissance site is running on.
Related information:
teacher
A personnel member assigned to instruct one or more classes, either as a lead teacher (every class must have one) or as a team teacher. Lead teachers are selected when you add or edit a class. Teachers can be assigned to multiple classes and to more than one school in a district.
Related information:
team teachers
Team teachers can be added to classes, but they are not required for classes. Team teachers can view class information and work with classes. When you add teachers to a class, you can choose which teacher is the lead teacher.
Related information:
technology/computer coordinator
The person(s) at the school or district responsible for performing tasks such as checking the software requirements at school computers, importing data, setting data restrictions, or choosing access and security settings. This person may have a different title in the district or school, such as IT specialist; in some cases, the district administrator may be the one performing these tasks.
Related information:
user name
A name assigned to personnel members or students which is used to log in to Renaissance.
Related information:
user permission group
A user permission group is a set of people who hold particular positions within a school or district. The user permission group a person belongs to determines what user permissions that person has in Renaissance. The user permission groups are district level administrators, district dashboard owners, district staff, school level administrators, school staff, and teachers. A person can belong to more than one user permission group (e.g., a school staff member who also teaches classes).
Related information:
user permissions
The ability to perform certain tasks in Renaissance software. Default user permissions are assigned to people based on what user permission group they belong to, but they can be changed (either for individuals or for user permission groups).
Related information: