Error Message

Original graduation year must be within a valid year range (+3 to -6 of current year's submission).

What Does it Mean

The original graduation year you have assigned to your high school student exceeds the minimum or maximum years allowed, based on the current submission year.

Solution

A student's original graduation year is determined when a student first enters ninth grade, and is based on a four year graduation cohort. "Original graduation year" does NOT mean the year a student graduates, but rather the year a student is anticipated to graduate, based on four years of high school.

For example, if a student begins 9th grade in SY 2018-2019, that student's original graduation year is 2022, anticipating a four year high school career:

Enters 9th Grade - 2018-2019
10th Grade - 2019-2020 (9th grade year +1)
11th Grade - 2020-2021 (9th grade year +2)
12th Grade - 2021-2022 (9th grade year +3)

2022 will remain this student's original graduation year for the entirety of his/her high school career. If the student is retained a year, the original graduation year does not change; it will remain 2022. Likewise if a student is promoted to another grade level or graduates early, the original graduation year will remain 2022.

A student's original graduation year follows the student if s/he moves between schools or districts. A student does not receive a new original graduation year when s/he enters a new school.

Some students, in particular students with special needs, may remain in school until the age of 21. These students would follow the same original graduation year model as all others, and would continue being reported with their original graduation year until they complete or leave school, or age out of the K-12 educational system at 21. It is for these students that we allow the original graduation year to fall up to six years prior to the current reporting year.

Students who have completed school (were given a promoted indicator of 3 in a previous school year) but who return to the high school following school completion should be reported as Grade 15, indicating they are a post-graduate student. Grade 15 students are not reported with an original graduation year, because they have already completed school.

The only times a student's original graduation year might change are in the following situations:

If an error was made in calculating the student's original graduation year when s/he first entered high school. The original graduation year can only be updated by the Department of Education, and will not be updated if it is not in error.
If the student returned to a lower grade level after their initial enrollment in 9th grade. In this case, the next time the student begins 9th grade, their district will assign the student a new original graduation year based on their new graduation cohort.

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