Off-days and important dates

Off-days block out a day in the lesson planner and the pacing guide. These can reflect days such as PD-Days, holidays, or unexpected days off due to weather. 

Off-days:

• prevent staff from creating lessons for the day

• do not count as teaching days when calculating unit start and end dates

Important dates:

• only impact curriculum maps

• reflect important dates where teaching still occurs, such as assessment windows or field trips

You must create an academic term before setting off-days or important dates.

Set off-days

1. From the Admin menu, select Organization Settings.

2. Go to the Academic Terms tab.

3. Select the Off-Days edit icon for the academic term.

4. On the Manage Off-Days dialog,  

   1. Add a holiday to select from pre-existing national holidays by country for a specific date range.

      1. Click Add Holiday Set.

      2. Choose a country. 

      3. Click Add.
         The holidays will populate according to the academic term date range.

      4. Click Save.

   2. Add an off-day to create a custom off-day.

      1. Click Add Off-Day.

      2. Enter a Reason for the off-day.

      3. Select a date range. For a single day, enter the same start and end date.

      4. Click Save.

Edit off-days

Once you have created an off-day, you can edit it by selecting it from the list. 

1. From the Admin menu, select Organization Settings.

2. Go to the Academic Terms tab and select the Off-Days edit icon for the academic term.

3. Edit the reason and date range as needed.
   For example, after adding all national holidays, select Christmas Day to edit. Then, change the reason to Winter Break and change the start and end dates to reflect the whole break. This will ensure this time is blocked out for teachers automatically.

4. Click Save.

Edit legacy off-days

If you have off days that are not linked to an academic term, you can edit them by selecting Days Off (Legacy). New off days must be linked to an academic term.

Remove off-days

1. From the Admin menu, select Organization Settings.

2. Go to the Academic Terms tab and select the Off-Days edit icon for the academic term.

3. Select the Delete icon for the off-day.
   

Removing off-days directly impacts teacher accounts for the institution, as well as the pacing guide. It can cause lessons to move back to this date if lessons have been planned ahead. 

If your academic term is assigned to a curriculum map, adding or removing off-days will automatically update unit dates that fall within the date range.

Set important dates

1. From the Admin menu, select Organization Settings.

2. Go to the Academic Terms tab.

3. Select the Important Dates edit icon for the academic term.

4. On the Manage Important Dates dialog, click Add Important Date.

5. Enter a Reason.

6. Select a date range. For a single day, enter the same start and end date.

7. Click Save.