How do I mark dates as non-school days and highlight them on the homepage?

Schoolrunner uses your school's calendar to determine which days are school days, which day's aren't, and which days should have notes or details attached to them (such as "First Day of School" or "Pep Rally"). Notable calendar days are listed on the right side of your homepage and are also visible on date picker elements throughout the site by hovering on the date on the calendar.

If Schoolrunner syncs directly with your SIS, your calendar information will be displayed in Schoolrunner with respect to how it's set up in your SIS. Any changes to your school calendar should be made in your SIS – not in Schoolrunner – to maintain consistency in both systems.

If you sync with Schoolrunner via Clever, calendar information does not come through automatically. It must find its way into Schoolrunner via one of two methods:

1. you can enter calendar days into Schoolrunner, either manually or via an export/import process
2. you can drop files onto an SFTP site to be synced into Schoolrunner (along with bell schedule details)

Method two requires coordination with Schoolrunner and is best for schools with the ability to programmatically export and format information from their SIS, including bell schedule details which provide for a richer Schoolrunner experience. Contact Schoolrunner support for more details.

The rest of this article details how method one works, which is ideal for getting the most important dates on your school calendar into Schoolrunner right away. Note that to manage your school's calendar details in Schoolrunner, you must have the "Edit Calendar Days" permission.

In Schoolrunner, "calendar days" can be either in-school days or out-of-school days. An in-school calendar day usually has some sort of noteworthy event attached  to it, but otherwise is a standard school day. Some examples:

In-School Calendar Days (count in attendance calculations)

• first day of school
• beginning of exams
• pep rally/dance/celebration
• parent conferences
• early releases

Out-of-School Calendar Days (don't count in attendance calculations)

• school vacations
• federal holidays
• local holidays
• PD days without students

Access the Calendar Days page via the Configure page, under "Attendance". The Calendar Days page lists out all the noteworthy dates for the current school year. If you haven't set up any calendar days yet, you can expect this page to be blank. Note that within Schoolrunner, weekends are automatically not school days, and weekdays (within the boundaries of your school year) are automatically considered school days.

Click the "Add Calendar Day" button to add a single day. You need to specify the date, whether the calendar day is in-school or out-of-school, and whether the calendar day applies to just the school you're currently logged into or all schools in your district (if applicable). Whatever you enter into the "Comments" field will be the description of your calendar day.

Additionally, add an out-of-session code if you want to categorize why it's not a school day. Leave "Active" toggled to "Yes". Only change this if you want to deactivate this calendar day completely. Note that you can only have one calendar day entry per day. If there are multiple events happening on one day, this can be reflected in the "Comments" field.

Pro Tip: Make use of the search bar on the main Calendar Days page to quickly filter your calendar days based on date or comments.

If you want to create a bunch of calendar days all at once, the best way is to import them. Click the "Import/Export" button on the Calendar Days page. When you download a .csv file from the next screen, you'll be able to bulk edit your existing calendar days and create new ones. This is handy for setting up out-of-school days for long vacations.

Be sure to leave the column headers unchanged. If you're doing this for the first time, make sure the new data you're entering is formatted similarly to existing data. Columns E and F can be ignored entirely.

When you're done with the spreadsheet, save your work and upload it into the "Import" tab. If you've formatted everything correctly, you'll see a blue confirmation message and a preview of your changes. Click "Save" to complete the process.

For reference, here is an explanation of the fields and expected inputs on the import file:

• Date – required; the date of the event or day; use YYYY-MM-DD format
• School – optional; leave blank if the entry should apply to all schools in your network/district; if adding an event for a specific school, make sure to enter the school name exactly as it appears in the school/year menu, found in the upper right of any Schoolrunner screen
• In Session – required; determines whether this is an "in-school" day for the purposes of calculating attendance; use Y or N
• Out of Session Code – optional; a note or abbreviation for the "type" of out-of-school day this is (PD, Holiday, etc.); this appears only if nothing is entered into the "Comments" field 
• Calendar Day Type – optional; disregard if you don't have a separate SFTP sync running; contact Schoolrunner support for more details
• Bell Schedule Type – optional; disregard if you don't have a separate SFTP sync running; contact Schoolrunner support for more details
• Comments – optional; a description of the event or day, such as "Training" or "Assembly"
• Active – required; determines whether or not Schoolrunner should respect or ignore this entry; use Y or N