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Programs

[For Admins + Managers] Learn to manage students using programs to better understand enrollment, capacity, and project future resourcing.

Rachel S avatar
Written by Rachel S
Updated over 5 months ago

Programs in brightwheel help managers and administrators with their overall enrollment management needs. A program is any grouping of students by some common characteristic, most often by age group (Infants, Toddlers, 3-5) and/or by schedule (full-time, part-time, after-school, MWF). Because schools organize their students into programs, the capacity of their school is also related to programs. It may be common for a school to have no available space in one program but a lot of space in another program. Visibility into this capacity at the program level supports administrator management of scheduling, room allocation, etc.

Add a New Program

  1. Log in to your Manager or Administrator account on the web

  2. Navigate to the Admissions section in brightwheel and click Programs

  3. Click + New Program 

  4. Fill in the fields specific to this program and click Save

Explanation of Fields

  • Program Name: The public-facing name of the program that would be shown in the profile to admins, and later, to parents in any forms

  • Description: A public-facing description of the program

  • Max Capacity: The maximum number of students that can be enrolled in this program (full + part-time)

  • Min / Max Age: The age range for this program

  • Start / End Date: The dates for which this program runs. The end date is optional as many programs roll over year to year, but is helpful for any specialized programs that schools might have.

Assign Students to a Program

The fastest way to add a new student to a program is from the Waitlist tab. By adding a student this way, their program and school status will change to Waitlist and will be added to your dashboard. Alternatively, a new student can be created from this tab.

  1. Log in to your Manager or Administrator account on the web

  2. Navigate to the Admissions section in brightwheel and click Waitlists

  3. Click + Add Student

  4. Choose Current or New

  5. Enter/select the name and select a program from the drop-down

  6. Click Add or Create Student

For existing students that are already enrolled in the program and actively attending, it is better to update program information in their student profile. Much like room assignments, students can be assigned to one or more programs from their Student Profile. Assigning all students to your programs will help administrators with overall Enrollment management and projections. 

  1. Click the Students tab and select the desired student

  2. Click Edit next to the Enrollment Details section of the student's profile

  3. Add or remove as many programs as needed and Save

💡 Currently there is not a report available for Programs so we reccomend using the Admissions Dashboard to filter for students in Programs.

How can I leverage Programs to manage my enrollment more easily?

  1. On the Admissions Dashboard, you can filter by program and status! This could help to view active students in a specific program or inactive students set to be enrolled in a specific program. Additionally, you can leverage all the tools the Admissions Dashboard offers (like changing statuses, viewing pending forms, etc.)

  2. Filter by a program on the Process Tracker to view where students are at in the enrollment process!

  3. When going to share forms with parents, you can also filter by program and then send the form to students only in those programs.

  4. Run the Program Waitlist report for an overview of which students have been waitlisted for a specific program.

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