FASTER CHANGES FOR 2006-2007

Effective: November 20, 2006
Revised Date:

ADMINISTRATIVE REMINDERS AND ISSUES

Districts and Postsecondaries

If you have not yet done so, visit the FASTER web page and sign up for the FASTER listserv by clicking on the Sign up for the Listserv link. Documentation on how to use the listserv can be found at http://lserv.fldoe.org.

We still have participation problems. Institutions are dropping FASTER before completing migration to their new platform/software. IT IS NOT AN OPTION to drop FASTER. Also, there are many elementary/middle schools still not participating. This is not acceptable. If your institution is having problems getting responses from any Florida public PK-12 or postsecondary, contact Lavan Dukes, Howard Campbell, or Lynda Page (K-12, community colleges and SUS respectively). The committee will ask the Commissioner/Secretary to help get these schools in compliance.

The cutover to the new version of FASTER and SPEEDE/ExPRESS will begin on November 17, 2006. The new version will be in place on November 20th. FASTER users will be notified via e-mail from the listserve when more details are available on the FASTER web page.

Districts Only

A redesign of the FASTER Response Edit Error Report has been completed to make it more Guidance Counselor-friendly. The same information is available as before. It has just been rearranged. To make each student's information stand out we have underlined the name and student identifiers. The raw data and the error descriptions have been physically separated. They can be matched using the sequence number at the beginning of each line. One big change is the reference number located to the right of the error description. Using this reference number and the record type, you can find the specific edit criteria, in Appendix R of the FASTER User Manual, which caused the error to occur. A legend has been added at the end of each school which explains the report columns. A sample of the new report format can be found in Appendix S.

FASTER PK-12 schools can be listed individually on the registrant list at the University of Texas, Austin, the server that handles SPEEDE/ExPRESS. OAS will continue to update the Texas server monthly per requests from the school districts.


FUNCTIONAL SYSTEM CHANGES

Districts and Postsecondaries

NOTE: Changes that were made to FASTER over the course of the previous year (i.e., since the original 2005-2006 manual was published in November 2005) are listed in Updates to the 2005-2006 Version of FASTER.

Several new Message Type Codes have recently been added. The codes and their meaning are:



FORMAT CHANGES

Header Formats - Appendix H

I/S/P00

Postsecondary Formats - Appendix J

P01

P02 through P08

Interdistrict/Secondary Formats - Appendix I

I/S01

I/S02 through I/S04

I/S05

I/S06 through I/S07

I/S08

I/S09



EDIT CHANGES - Appendix R

I/S/P00   Header Record Edits
17 Date of Birth must contain a valid date (CCYYMMDD) later than 9/14/1889 and earlier than 3 years before the current date. If Record Type is P00 and Message Type begins with either the letter S or the letter Q, then Date of Birth may also be blank.

P01   Postsecondary Fixed Segment Edits

47 School Entry Date must be a valid date (CCYYMMDD) not later than the current date.
48 School Exit Date must be a valid date (CCYYMMDD) not later than the current date, or it may be zeros.

P02   Postsecondary Term Edits

P03   Postsecondary Course Edits

P04   Postsecondary Remarks Edits

P05   Postsecondary Transfer Segment Edits

P06   Postsecondary Test edits

P07   Postsecondary Degree Edits

P08   Postsecondary Immunization Edits

I/S01   PK-12 Demographic Edits

11 Birthdate must contain a valid date (CCYYMMDD) later than 9/14/1889 and earlier than 3 years before the current date.
62 Participation in Special Education Prior to Kindergarten must be Y, N, or Z. Former edit deleted.

I/S02   PK-12 Immunization Edits

I/S03   PK-12 School Year Edits

I/S04   PK-12 Course edits

8.1 If District Number, Where Credit Earned, is 01 - 76, or 78 - 79, School Number, Where Credit Earned, must be a valid ID from the Florida Public Schools Master School ID File or the the Florida Non-public Schools Master School ID File (see Appendix B). It may also be zero, N997, N998, N999, C901-C928, U970-U980 or blanks. However, school numbers 3518 and 3818 are invalid.
8.3 If District Number, Where Credit Earned, is 99 or FL, School Number, Where Credit Earned, may be any of the following:

nnnn     In-State Private PK-12 school number must be numeric and greater than zero.

N997, N998, N999 or

blanks

If District Number, Where Credit Earned, is FL , School Number must be a valid In-State Private School or N998 or N999.

I/S05   PK-12 Vocational/LEP/Dropout edits

I06   PK-12 Exceptional Student Edits

I/S07   PK-12 Student Comment Edits

I/S08   PK-12 Test Edits

16 New Test Score Type allowed, LX Lexile Score

I09   PK-12 Discipline Edits

9 New Incident Type allowed, BHA Bullying / Harrassment