The numbers behind the numbers.
The Field Guide explains what every Chalkline screen does. This guide explains the data underneath — the exact inputs the model consumes, where each one comes from in a school, how it's defined, and how to bring a school's data in so the outputs reconcile. It's built to be handed to a business office, a consultant, or a diocesan finance team as an onboarding tool.
What this guide is
Chalkline is a planning model, not an accounting system or a student record. It runs on a compact set of counts, rates, and dollar totals — not on individual student records. This guide is the specification for that input set.
What you'll find here
- The data model — the handful of entities Chalkline reasons about.
- A field dictionary — every input, defined, with its unit, typical source, and an example value.
- A source map — which office or system each input comes from.
- A prep path — the minimal set to get a first model running in under an hour, and the full set for production.
- Validation rules — how to know the data is right before anyone trusts the output.
The headline for a nervous business office: Chalkline needs no student PII. The model runs on grade-level counts, rates, and financial totals. Names, birthdays, and records stay in your SIS. That makes it far easier to pilot — and it's a genuine differentiator when you pitch a diocese or a consulting engagement.
How Chalkline uses data
Every input flows into one engine that produces every screen. Because the screens all read the same engine, they always reconcile — the Board Report, the dashboard, and a single classroom drawer can never disagree.
Inputs → engine → outputs
The reconciliation identity
One equation is the contract between your data and the model's answer. If your inputs are internally consistent, this holds to the dollar; if it doesn't, a number is wrong or double-counted.
Use this as your acceptance test. Load your data, open the Board Report, and confirm the surplus it states equals your business office's expected bottom line for the modeled scope. When they match, the rest of the model can be trusted.
The data model
Chalkline reasons about seven groups of things. Most are aggregates; only enrollment and retention need per-grade (never per-student) detail.
| Entity | What it represents | Granularity |
|---|---|---|
| School & division | The modeled scope — a whole school, a division (lower/upper), or a single campus in a system. | One record; divisions optional. |
| Teaching unit | The business unit: a classroom (K–8) or a course section (HS). | Per unit, or derived from enrollment ÷ target. |
| Enrollment | Filled seats and capacity by grade or room. | Per grade / per room (counts, not students). |
| Tuition & aid | Sticker price, collected (net) tuition, and the aid/discount between them. | Per division/grade, plus a school blend. |
| Staffing & schedule | Teacher cost and the instructional time a unit consumes. | Averages + schedule constants. |
| Costs | Variable (per-student) cost and the fixed/overhead pool spread across units. | Per-student rates + pooled totals. |
| Non-tuition revenue | Annual fund, endowment draw, auxiliary, fees. | Annual totals. |
| Retention & dynamics | Re-enrollment rates and the flows that drive multi-year contract value. | Per grade + a few school rates. |
Field dictionary
Every input the model consumes. core fields are needed for a first working model; refine fields sharpen it. Values are illustrative.
Tuition & aid
| Field | Definition | Unit | Source | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sticker tuition core | Published list price, by division or grade band. | $ / student / yr | Business office | $16,500 |
| Net tuition ratio core | Collected tuition ÷ sticker, after aid & discounts. | ratio (0–1) | Business + aid office | 0.82 |
| Tuition collected | Actual net tuition (an alternative to entering the ratio). | $ / yr | General ledger | $3.9M |
| Financial aid & discount refine | Total aid awarded; equals sticker − collected. | $ / yr | Aid office / FACTS | $860k |
Enrollment
| Field | Definition | Unit | Source | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Students per grade / room core | Filled seats in each grade (HS) or classroom (K–8). | count | SIS / enrollment | 118 |
| Room capacity / seats refine | Maximum seats before a step cost triggers. | count | Registrar | 22 |
| Section target size core HS | Target students per core section; sets section count. | count | Academic dean | 24 |
Staffing & schedule
| Field | Definition | Unit | Source | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average loaded salary core | Teacher salary including benefits. | $ / FTE / yr | HR / business office | $72,000 |
| Instructional minutes/year core K–8 | min/day × days/week × weeks. | minutes | Academic calendar | 67,200 |
| Teaching minutes/week core HS | A full teaching load, used to size FTE from section-minutes. | minutes | Academic dean | 1,250 |
Costs
| Field | Definition | Unit | Source | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Variable cost / student core | Itemized per-head cost: materials, technology, food/auxiliary, activities. | $ / student / yr | General ledger | $1,150 |
| Fixed / overhead pool core | Facilities, admin, shared services spread across cost centers as each unit's "rent." | $ / yr | General ledger | $2.4M |
| Direct department cost refine HS | Non-teaching costs owned by a department (labs, equipment). | $ / yr | Department budgets | $140k |
| Allocation policy refine HS | How shared cost/revenue is spread: per-student / per-credit / per-section. | choice | Business office | per-credit |
Non-tuition revenue
| Field | Definition | Unit | Source | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual fund core | Operating gifts applied to the current year. | $ / yr | Development office | $650k |
| Endowment draw refine | Spending-policy transfer to operations. | $ / yr | Finance | $420k |
| Auxiliary & fees refine | Aftercare, summer, activity fees, other program income. | $ / yr | General ledger | $300k |
Retention & dynamics
| Field | Definition | Unit | Source | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retention rate by grade core | Share of returning-eligible students who re-enroll (top grade graduates). | ratio (0–1) | SIS (year over year) | 0.93 |
| Incoming class core | New entry-grade students expected. | count | Admissions | 120 |
| Transfers / year refine | Net new students entering above the entry grade. | count / yr | Admissions | 8 |
| Tuition growth refine | Annual tuition escalation, used for contract value & scenarios. | % / yr | Finance / board | 4% |
Strategy assumptions
| Field | Definition | Unit | Source | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price elasticity refine | % change in enrollment per % change in price (negative). | ε | Estimate / EMA | −0.4 |
| Net-ratio floor refine | Lowest blended net ratio you'll accept; sets discount headroom. | ratio | Board / policy | 0.78 |
| Acquisition cost / student refine | Marketing + admissions spend to recruit one new student. | $ / student | Marketing budget | $2,500 |
| Discount benchmark refine | Sector reference discount rate for comparison. | % | NBOA (~18%) | 18% |
Where your data lives
Nearly every input already exists in a system or an office. This is the pull list — what to ask each source for.
| Source | Pull |
|---|---|
| SIS / enrollment system | Students per grade, retention year-over-year, section rosters/counts. (Blackbaud, Veracross, PowerSchool, FACTS SIS.) |
| Business office / general ledger | Collected tuition, payroll, overhead pool, variable cost lines, auxiliary income — the audited totals the model reconciles to. |
| Financial aid office | Total aid awarded and the net tuition ratio. In many schools this is administered through FACTS Grant & Aid. |
| FACTS / DART Catholic | In Catholic systems, tuition billing and aid data often flow through FACTS and the diocesan DART pipeline — position Chalkline on top of it, not against it. |
| Development office | Annual fund applied to operations, and any restricted gifts that offset program cost. |
| Finance / investment | Endowment draw under spending policy; tuition growth assumptions. |
Chalkline is the decision-reasoning layer on top of your billing and SIS infrastructure — it reads their outputs, it doesn't replace them. FACTS, DART, and your SIS remain the systems of record.
Preparing your data
You do not need everything to start. A first, honest model comes from a short list; production comes from the full set.
The 60-minute starter set
With just these, the dashboard, break-even, and contract-value views all work:
Working practices
- Model one division first. Stand up the lower school (or grades 9–12) end-to-end before adding the rest; it surfaces mapping issues while the scope is small.
- Use blended figures where detail is thin. A single school-wide net ratio is fine to start; refine to per-grade later.
- Keep sticker and net distinct. The most common prep error is entering collected tuition where sticker is expected, or vice-versa.
- Match the modeled scope to the ledger scope. If you model a division, compare against that division's budget, not the whole school's.
Every seeded value in Chalkline is a realistic stand-in you overwrite. You can explore the whole tool before your data is ready, then replace the placeholders division by division.
Data quality & validation
Two checks catch almost every data problem: the reconciliation identity, and a short list of sanity ranges.
The reconciliation check
Sanity ranges
| Check | Expect | If it's off… |
|---|---|---|
| Net tuition ratio | Roughly 0.80–0.88 (discount ~12–20%) | A ratio near 1.0 usually means sticker was entered as collected. |
| Discount rate vs. sector | Near the ~18% NBOA benchmark | Far above may mean aid is double-counted; far below, aid is missing. |
| Sections per grade HS | ≈ ⌈grade enrollment ÷ target⌉ | Mismatch points to a wrong target size or grade count. |
| Cost to educate / student | Typically above net tuition/student | If it's implausibly low, a cost pool is missing from overhead. |
| Payroll reconciles | Σ section/room teacher cost = total payroll HS | Off means FTE or minutes are misstated. |
Common pitfalls
- Sticker vs. net. The single biggest error. Keep them in separate fields and let the ratio do the work.
- Double-counting aid. Don't subtract aid twice — once in the net ratio and again as a cost line.
- Headcount vs. FTE. Salary is per FTE; enrollment is headcount. Don't mix them.
- Scope drift. Comparing a one-division model to a whole-school budget will never reconcile.
Benchmarks & external data
Chalkline is grounded in the sector's own frameworks. Benchmarks are used for comparison and framing — not as targets the model pushes you toward.
| Source | What it anchors |
|---|---|
| EMA (Enrollment Management Association) | Net tuition revenue as the center of enrollment strategy; price-response thinking. |
| NBOA (National Business Officers Assn.) | The tuition discount rate benchmark (~18% sector average) the discount screen compares against. |
| AISAP | Admissions and enrollment professional practice — the language the model's retention and yield concepts speak. |
| NCEA / diocesan context | Catholic-sector framing where the diocese, not the school, is the unit of decision. |
Benchmarks shift year to year and vary by region, size, and sector. Treat the figures in Chalkline as reference points to confirm against your associations' latest data, not as fixed truths.
Privacy & handling
Chalkline is deliberately built to run on aggregates and rates, which keeps the sensitive data out of it entirely.
- No student PII required. Grade-level counts and school-level financials drive the entire model. Names, IDs, and records never need to leave your SIS.
- Financial totals, not transactions. The model wants the pooled figures your business office already reports, not line-item ledger detail.
- Student-level input is optional and only ever used to compute the same aggregates faster; it is never necessary.
This is a sales asset as much as a safeguard. "We need no student records to model your school" removes the biggest objection a cautious business office or diocesan office will raise in a pilot conversation.
This section describes how the model is designed to be used; it isn't legal advice. Follow your own institution's data-handling and records policies, and any applicable regulations, when deciding what to share.
Glossary
| Aggregate | A count or total (e.g., students in Grade 9, total payroll) rather than a per-person record. |
| Sticker vs. net tuition | Published price vs. what is actually collected after aid and discounts. |
| Net tuition ratio | Collected ÷ sticker. One minus the discount rate. |
| Variable vs. capacity cost | Per-student cost that scales with enrollment vs. cost sunk on a unit whether or not it fills. |
| Cost center | A unit that receives a share of the overhead pool as allocated "rent." |
| Allocation policy HS | The rule for spreading shared cost/revenue: per-student, per-credit, or per-section. |
| Total Contract Value (TCV) | A student's remaining enrolled years × annual net tuition, escalated by tuition growth. |
| Retention rate | Share of returning-eligible students who re-enroll; the top grade graduates rather than attrites. |
| Reconciliation identity | surplus = tuition + otherRev − payroll − directDept − overhead − extracurricular.net − varTotal. |
| DART Catholic | Diocesan data/reporting pipeline that FACTS feeds in many Catholic systems. |