How School Periods Work for Independent Teachers in Vocab Loco

School periods define the academic calendar for your classroom in Vocab Loco. If you have a paid plan and are not linked to a Super User account, you manage your own school calendar. Vocab Loco uses these periods to organize activity data, filter reports by year, and control what resets when a new year begins. All historical data is preserved — past school years remain accessible in your reports at any time.

This feature is available on paid plans only. Teachers on a trial or free plan follow the platform's global calendar and cannot configure their own school year. Teachers linked to a Super User account also do not configure their own calendar — their school year is managed by the school account.

First-Time Setup

When you log in for the first time after activating a paid plan, a setup window will appear automatically asking you to configure your school year. You will choose a calendar format and set the start and end dates for your current and upcoming school years.

If you dismiss the window and want to configure it later, go to Customize Program in the left sidebar and open the School Year tab.

Choosing a Calendar Format

At the bottom of the School Year tab, you can select how your academic calendar is structured:

With summer break — a gap separates one school year from the next. Use this for standard US academic calendars where students are off during the summer.

Year-Round Schedule — school years run continuously with no summer gap between them. Use this if your program operates year-round without a long break.

Switching formats opens a setup dialog where you confirm the new dates. Previous school years are preserved and realigned to the new time frame.

Your School Years

The School Year tab displays a table listing all your configured school years. Each row shows the school year name, its start and end dates, and a status badge:

Current — the active school year. Data generated today is attached to this period.

Upcoming — the next school year, already configured and waiting to activate on its start date.

Past — previous school years. Their data is preserved and accessible in your reports.

Editing School Year Dates

Click the edit button (pencil icon) on any school year row to open the edit dialog. You can adjust the start and end dates for that year. The end date must be after the start date, and dates cannot overlap another school year already configured.

Student progress is always attached to its original school year and remains available for review at any time, regardless of date edits.

Starting a New Year with an Empty Class

When editing an upcoming school year, you will see the option Start this school year with an empty class. If enabled, student enrollments will not carry over when the new year begins — you will start the year with no students in your roster and will need to re-add or re-import your class. Student history from the previous year remains intact and attached to that period.

If left unchecked, all current enrollments carry over automatically when the new school year starts.

What Resets Automatically

When a new school year begins, activity points reset automatically for all students. This happens every year rollover and cannot be disabled.

Banked Words and list progress are never reset and carry over across school years.

Game coins can optionally reset at the start of a new year if that option was selected during initial setup. They can also be reset manually at any time (see below).

Manually Resetting School Year Data

The Reset school year data section of the School Year tab gives you three manual reset options that affect the current school year. All actions require a two-step confirmation before any data is changed.

Reset game coins — sets game coin balances to zero for all students immediately. Activity history and reports are not affected.

Clear current class roster — removes all students from the current school year only. Past school year records remain available, and all current group assignments will also be cleared. Students can be re-added at any time.

Clear student group assignments — removes students from their groups. The groups themselves, their names, and historical reports remain intact.

Clear current class roster and Clear student group assignments are available only for native Vocab Loco teacher accounts. If your account was set up through Clever or ClassLink, your roster is managed by that sync and cannot be manually cleared here.

How School Periods Appear in Reports

Every report in your teacher account includes a school period selector at the top of the page. The list shows all your configured school years — current, upcoming, and past. Selecting a period filters all report data to that academic year, making it easy to review and compare performance across years.