Set Your District Up for a Smooth Launch
Before teachers and students begin using Newsela or Formative, use this guide to confirm your integration is ready for the new school year.
Before Resuming Your Sync
Confirm that:
Your current school year and academic sessions are active in your SIS.
School names, course names, and user email addresses are accurate.
Teachers and co-teachers are assigned to the correct sections.
Student schedules are finalized.
New schools and grade levels have been added.
Prior-year classes remain archived.
Every user, class, and school has a unique, unchanged ID.
Only licensed schools and users are included in your sharing rules.
The Newsela or Formative app is available to the correct users in Clever or ClassLink.
Your IT and implementation contacts know when the first sync will occur.
Your roster data originates in your SIS. Make corrections there before syncing them to Clever, ClassLink, or Newsela.
Platform-Specific Dos and Don’ts
Clever
✅ Do:
Review your sharing rules before school begins.
Share only the licensed schools, teachers, students, and classes.
Confirm that new schools, teachers, and co-teachers are included.
Allow the initial sync to finish before testing access.
Spot-check an administrator, teacher, and student account after syncing.
❌ Don’t:
Share the entire district if only certain schools are licensed.
Reuse prior-year class records.
Change Clever User IDs.
Frequently unshare and reshare users or classes.
Expect schedule changes to appear before the next nightly sync.
ClassLink
✅ Do:
Confirm that Roster Server contains current-year data.
Review the schools and users included in your sharing rules.
Verify teacher and co-teacher assignments.
Resume sharing only after the new school year is configured.
Test access with an administrator, teacher, and student account.
❌ Don’t:
Change or reuse Sourced IDs.
Remove schools or users before verifying that updated data has synced.
Make major sharing changes while a sync is processing.
Unshare and reshare classes without coordinating the change.
OneRoster
✅ Do:
Populate all required CSV or API fields.
Assign a unique Sourced ID to every user, class, and organization.
Submit complete, current-year data files.
Verify enrollments before publishing.
Validate your files and spot-check users after each upload.
❌ Don’t:
Rename or recycle Sourced IDs.
Upload partial files.
Change identifier formats during the school year.
Combine prior-year and current-year data.
Avoid These Common Setup Issues
Common Issue | What Happens |
Teacher is not shared | The teacher cannot access their rostered classes |
Student is missing from the SIS | The student does not appear in the class |
School is excluded from sharing | The entire school may be missing |
Prior-year classes are reused | Duplicate or inaccurate classes may appear |
User or class IDs are changed | Duplicate accounts or broken roster connections may be created |
Sync remains paused | Roster updates do not reach Newsela or Formative |
Access is tested before the sync finishes | Users may appear missing when the sync is still processing |
Who Should Be Shared?
User Type | Share? |
Participating students | Yes |
Classroom teachers | Yes |
Co-teachers | Yes |
Instructional coaches using the product | Yes |
School and district administrators | If they require access |
Substitute teachers | Only when needed |
Archived staff and former students | No |
After Your First Sync
Once the sync is complete:
Confirm that the correct schools, courses, and sections appear.
Test access with an administrator, teacher, and student account.
Verify that teachers see the correct classes and students.
Communicate login instructions and sync timing to your staff.
Allow scheduled nightly syncs to process before reporting recently changed data as missing.
If you use Google Workspace, confirm that Newsela is configured as a trusted app. If your district uses Canvas or Google Classroom, remind teachers that roster updates may require a manual sync.
If Something Doesn’t Look Right
Before contacting Support:
Confirm that the user exists in your SIS.
Verify that the user is included in your Clever, ClassLink, or OneRoster sharing.
Check the user’s school, section, email address, role, and unique ID.
Confirm that the sync has completed.
Avoid changing IDs or repeatedly unsharing and resharing data while troubleshooting.
If the issue continues, contact Support with the affected user’s name, email address, school, section, and rostering platform.
Need Help Preparing for the School Year?
Our Integration Specialists are available for a complimentary 15-minute consultation to review your setup, answer questions, or help troubleshoot your integration.
You can also review our System Setup and Integration resources for additional platform-specific guidance.