Programs Terminology

The following definitions will help you to understand terms as they are used in the documentation for Programs.

Child Field	A program field that is linked to a parent field upon which the field is dependent. Student must have a program record for the parent field before values can be entered for corresponding child fields.
Current Vector	Record for a program field that has no end date entered. The student is considered to be actively participating in services tracked by this program. You can select whether the current vector should be closed during year end rollover processing.
Header Field	See Parent Field.
Parent/Child Relationship	If a student is required to be enrolled in one program/service before the student can be enrolled in another program/service, there is a parent/child relationship between the two programs. For example, a student must be identified as eligible for Title I services before the student can be enrolled in one of the Title I programs. Program tracking allows you to create links between the programs to help users to enter data correctly. Note: If you want to enforce that the student never has a program tracking record for the child field that is outside of the range of the parent field, you must select the Link Type of Absolutely Linked or Completely Linked. It is not recommended to define multiple levels of parent/children programs. For example, if you indicate that a field is linked to Entry/Withdrawal, do not use that field as the parent for another field.
Parent Field	A program field that is considered the primary record for a service and on which other program fields are dependent. Student must have a program record for the parent field before values can be entered for corresponding child fields.
Program	Service offered at schools for which the district wants to track start and end dates. Typically, state reporting requirements drive the need to define a set of fields for which you can track entry and withdrawal dates in order to report the exact number of days that a student was served or to indicate that the student was being served as of a specific date. For a program, you can define the program fields that you want to track.
Program Field	A field for which you want to track start and end dates as part of a program. The field may also update a source field.
Source Field	A field that exists in one of the base Registration tables (including student district-defined pages) that is updated by program information. If a program field is defined to update a source field, the source field is updated when a user adds or closes vectors for the associated program field. When a field is designated as a source field, users must change the value for the field in the associated program. Users cannot update the source field on the page where the field displays. They must click a link to display the Programs dialog.