The Importance of Entry & Exit Codes

Accurate enrollment records are critical not only for building a clear picture of school demographics and student mobility, but also for ensuring receipt of appropriate funding. Consistently using entry and exit codes are key aspects of maintaining accurate student enrollment records.

States and authorizers require demographic data submissions, validations and student counts at various points during the year. Poorly maintained student entry and exit information can lead to underfunding, financially-driven staff reductions and incorrect enrollment data being published by the state School Report Card.

Therefore, it is important for schools to set a precedent for meticulous data collection and submissions procedures from the beginning of the school year. A few best practices include:

Identify and properly train staff who will manage student enrollment data to make sure all necessary fields are being captured in the right place (see below for more on this)
Ensure student entry and exit data is inputted at the time of the entry/exit to avoid missing information later on
Export relevant student entry and exit data on a monthly basis for internal auditing and data cleansing purposes

To determine the appropriate entry and exit codes for a student, the following data points and questions should be considered: