You can change your school-year dates and attendance goals from Home on the HomeTrail website. These settings are included with HomeTrail Free.
Set first and last days
- Open Home and find This year in Your family rhythm.
- Select School year.
- Choose Currently homeschooling, Planning to start, or Between school years.
- If you are planning to start or between years, optionally enter When do you expect to start?.
- Choose Set start and end dates, then enter First day and Last day. The last day must be after the first day.
- Select Save school year.
The expected start date describes when your family plans to begin. First day and Last day define the calendar you want HomeTrail to use.
Learn year-round
In the same School year panel, choose We learn year-round, then select Save school year. HomeTrail does not require first and last days for year-round learning.
Use Breaks in Your family rhythm for a holiday, vacation, or other planned time off.
Update a student's attendance goal
- Select the student in Your family rhythm on Home.
- Update Attendance criteria with the rule your family follows, such as a number of school days, instructional hours, or what counts as a learning day.
- Select Save student.
HomeTrail uses this rule when showing attendance progress and building reports. Changing the rule does not mark any days attended; record completed attendance on the relevant days.
Keep earlier records when starting a new year
Saving school-year dates does not advance students to another grade or delete attendance, activities, or photos. Update each student's Grade separately when appropriate. Earlier attendance and learning records keep the grade they were logged under.
Your recurring activities remain saved. Review their days and any start or end dates to make sure they apply to the new year.
See Start a New School Year or Change a Student's Grade for the grade steps and how to look back at last year, or Record and Review Attendance for checking off school days.
