Rostering with Clever and ClassLink

What rostering does in Helio

Rostering is the link between your student information system and the apps your classrooms use. Instead of each teacher creating accounts and copying class lists by hand, the classes you already maintain flow into Helio through the rostering service your district uses. Helio works with two of them: Clever and ClassLink.

Once your district is connected, three things happen. Teachers and students sign in with their existing school account, so there are no new passwords to hand out or reset.

Each teacher's sections appear in Helio as classes, with the right students in them. And when enrollment changes, Helio follows the roster, so a student who moves to a different period shows up in the right class without anyone filing a request.

Accurate class lists matter for more than convenience. In Helio, teachers assign lessons to a class or a few students, see who is stuck right now, review the common mistakes in a class this week, see what each student understands skill by skill, and replay any session. All of those views are only as trustworthy as the class lists behind them.

How it works with Clever

Helio connects to Clever through Clever's standard sign-in and its data API. Teachers and students can open Helio from the Clever portal with Clever Instant Login, and teachers can also choose Sign in with Clever when they join Helio. Either way, Clever tells Helio who the person is and which district they belong to, and Helio matches that to your district's account.

The first time a teacher signs in, Helio reads the sections that teacher is assigned to in Clever, creates a matching class for each one, and adds the enrolled students. A teacher who already has a Helio account can choose Import from Clever in the teacher view to bring their sections into that account instead.

How it works with ClassLink

With ClassLink, people sign in through ClassLink LaunchPad, and class data comes from your district's ClassLink roster server in the OneRoster 1.1 format. For teachers the experience is the same as with Clever: open Helio from LaunchPad or choose Sign in with ClassLink when joining, and your sections appear as classes; or use Import from ClassLink from inside Helio.

Because OneRoster is a shared data standard, the same information is available either way: schools, classes, the teachers who lead them, and the students enrolled. Districts on ClassLink do not need to export spreadsheets or maintain a separate list for Helio.

What roster data Helio reads, and why

Rostered students do not need an email address. They sign in through Clever or ClassLink, and Helio never asks them to create a password. Helio reads from the roster and never writes back to Clever, ClassLink, or your student information system.

In both services, your district decides which schools and sections an application is allowed to see. Within what you choose to share, Helio reads only what it needs to set up classes:

• School and district names, so each class sits under the right school.
• Section names and grade levels, so teachers recognize their classes.
• Teacher names and school email addresses, so teachers can sign in and be reached.
• Student names and grade levels, so students land in the right class. Helio uses grade level to place each student in an age group, which sets age-appropriate lessons and settings.
• The provider's ID for each person and class, so later syncs update the same records instead of creating duplicates.

Keeping class lists current through the year

Class lists change all year, and Helio handles that in two ways. Each time a teacher signs in through the provider or runs an import, Helio refreshes that teacher's sections.

Separately, a district administrator can run a district-wide sync that reads every shared section and brings all classes up to date at once. The same sync can also be set up to run on a schedule.

For rostered classes, the roster is the source of truth. If a student is no longer listed in a section, they leave the matching Helio class at the next sync and drop off that teacher's views.

Their account and learning history are not deleted by the move. Students a teacher added by hand are left alone, so a visiting student added for a few weeks is not removed when the roster updates.

Not every classroom is rostered, and that is fine. Teachers can add students one at a time, and each student gets a personal code to sign in with. That works for pilots, after-school programs, and schools that have not connected a rostering service yet.

Setting up rostering for your district

School and district accounts are separate from Helio's family plans. They are priced per student per year and paid by invoice, and your district's Helio account needs to exist before Clever or ClassLink can connect to it. A typical setup looks like this:

• Contact Helio to set up your district account and agree on which schools are included.
• Choose your provider, Clever or ClassLink, and decide which schools and sections to share with Helio.
• Review the data agreement with your privacy lead. California districts usually look for terms that address SOPIPA and AB 1584, and FERPA covers student education records at schools that receive U.S. Department of Education funds.
• Approve Helio in your Clever or ClassLink dashboard and share the selected schools and sections.
• Ask one or two teachers to sign in first and confirm their classes look right before a wider launch.
• Tell students where to find Helio: in the Clever or ClassLink portal they already use for other school apps.

A note on privacy and agreements

Rostering moves student records between systems, so it belongs in your district's normal privacy review. Your school decides who can see student data in Helio, and Helio does not train on that data without permission. Staff accounts can use two-step sign-in.

This section is general information, not legal advice. Your district's counsel or privacy office is the right place to confirm what your agreements need to include.