The South Dakota Department of Education has implemented a common course numbering system for high school courses for all accredited school districts. The state course codes will be used for accountability purposes including, but not limited to, Career and Technical Education federal reporting, migrant course history and course data for the college and career readiness indicator within the School Performance Index. The state course codes within the PRF database are used to capture staffing information for all accredited districts.

The department has spent the last several months reviewing the list of course codes available for the following systems: Infinite Campus, the Personnel Record Form (PRF) and the Perkins system. All course codes will be available for use in the systems for the 2018-19 school year. The master course code list is available at http://doe.sd.gov/octe/commoncourse.aspx.

The department requires that districts use the state common course codes on a student’s high school transcript. Districts have the flexibility to keep local course titles and descriptions, if the course content aligns with the intent of the course and course descriptions.

Within the Infinite Campus district edition are two new validation reports that districts can run to verify that all high school courses have an appropriate state course code. See the Student Data Collections Desk Guide for further details. This will help identify high school courses within a district’s system that have expired state course codes or no state course codes.

The department is requesting that all districts run the two new validation reports, correct and adjust accordingly so that students’ transcripts, starting with the 2018-19 school year, reflect the updated high school course codes. The department is NOT requiring districts to update courses that were transcribed in previous years.

The department is only requiring the common course numbering process for high school courses and transcripts. However, the Infinite Campus system will not allow the district to save a K-8 course without a state course code. To accommodate this, the department has created the state course code of “Bypass” to be used for all K-8 courses in the Infinite Campus system. When editing an existing K-8 course or entering a new K-8 course into the Infinite Campus system, the district will simply enter the word “Bypass” in the required State Code field. This “Bypass” code is ONLY to be used on K-8 courses. All high school courses must be aligned to the appropriate state course code from the master course code list.

The Common Course Codes will be reviewed and updated by the Department of Education on an annual basis using the following timeline:

• Oct. 1: Districts may submit a request for a new course code to the Department of Education if a course does not align to any of the state course descriptions. The course code will be available for use for the following school year.
  • The request must include the following information: course title, course description, subject/content category and standards addressed in the course.
• Nov. 1: The department will review the district request and communicate the final decision back to the district.
• Dec. 1: If a new course code is identified, the new code will be added to Infinite Campus and communication will be sent to districts.
• August of the following year: If a new course code is identified, the new code will be added to the PRF system when the PRF system reopens for the following school year.

• Technical assistance with Infinite Campus: Randy Hanson, 605-773-4727
• Core Content course alignment: Cheryl Reiter, 605-280-0990
• Career & Technical Education course alignment: Erin Larsen, 605-773-2533
• Personnel Record Form (PRF): Carla Leingang, 605-773-4638
• Dual Credit: Amber Rost, 605-220-6612