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The year-end rollover, start to finish

Once a year everything shifts forward. Last year's Current becomes Past, this year's Future becomes Current, and you add new Future content for the year after.

This is the biggest job in this handbook. Read the whole page before starting, and set aside a couple of uninterrupted hours.

First time? Do it with Michael.

If you have not run this before, do it alongside Michael the first time.

Two switches, not one

Every quarter has a destination and a schedule, and each has its own Past / Current / Future switch: Destination Type on the destination, Schedule Type on the schedule. The academy pages follow both. Flip both in Steps 2 and 3. If you only flip destinations, last year's schedule quarters stay on the page next to this year's, and a section shows 8 quarters instead of 4. See the two switches.

Before you start

When to run it: at the end of the spring term, once this year's content is no longer relevant and next year's plans are firm enough to publish.

What you need:

  • An Editor or Administrator account. Authors cannot create a new school year (Step 4). Check your role under Users, or ask Michael.
  • The finalized destinations and schedules for the new Future year, or at least most of them.

The golden rule: never delete or trash anything

Setting items to Past keeps them saved and keeps destinations connected to their schedules. Those connections are not easy to rebuild. See Never do these.

The steps are ordered so the public never sees the site half-changed. Do not skip ahead to Step 6.

Step 1: Hide every section

For each of the five academies, switch all four of these OFF, on the Section Display tab (how):

  • Show Current Destinations Section
  • Show Current Schedule Section
  • Show Future Destinations Section
  • Show Future Schedule Section

Click Update. Repeat for all five.

Why hide Future too? The moment you promote Future to Current in Step 3, the Future sections are empty until you add new content in Step 4. Hiding both means nobody catches the site mid-change. This is temporary; you turn them back on in Step 6.

Step 2: Set the outgoing year to Past (destinations AND schedules)

This is two lists, and both need doing. Tick them off as you go:

  • Destinations: the list has a Destination Type column. Click the column heading to sort, so all the Current ones group together. For every destination marked Current, open it, change Destination Type to Past, and click Update.
  • Schedules: same thing with the Schedule Type column. For every schedule marked Current, open it, change Schedule Type to Past, and click Update.

When you finish, sort each list by its Type column again. Neither list should have anything left marked Current.

Past items vanish from the website but stay in the database with everything intact.

Only see a Title column?

Your browser window is too narrow, so WordPress hid the extra columns. Widen or maximize the window, or check Screen Options at the top right to confirm the columns are ticked.

Step 3: Promote next year to Current (destinations AND schedules)

Same two lists, one step further:

  • Destinations: every item marked Future becomes Current.
  • Schedules: every item marked Future becomes Current.

Sort each list by its Type column to check. After this step there should be nothing left marked Future in either list. That is expected. Step 4 fixes it.

Step 4: Add the new Future year

First, create the school year label if it does not exist yet. Follow Add a new school year. This step needs an Editor or Administrator account.

Then create the destinations and schedules. For each academy, for each quarter, add a Destination and a matching Schedule for the new year. Set Destination Type and Schedule Type to Future on every new post.

Copying last year's post is the easiest way to start, but a copy brings everything with it, including old dates, photos and the URL slug. Work through the After you copy a post checklist for every copy before you publish.

Labels must match within each pair

A destination and its schedule need identical Academy, Quarter, and Academic Year, and they need to be linked to each other. The academy page looks fine without the link, so a missing or wrong link is easy to miss. See Destinations & Schedules.

If an academy's plans are not final, leave its content out for now and keep that academy's Show Future toggles OFF in Step 6. You can add it later without redoing anything else.

Step 5: Update the year in the headings (by hand, per academy)

This is the step people forget. The heading year is typed in separately from the content (Rule 3). If you skip this, all your content will be correct while every heading still shows last year.

For each of the five academies, go to Academies > the academy > Academy Fields > Section Display tab, under the Academic Year Headings divider (how):

  1. Set Current Academic Year to the year you promoted in Step 3.
  2. Set Future Academic Year to the year you created in Step 4.
  3. Click Update.

Each academy is set on its own, and they do not have to match each other.

Leave a dropdown blank only if that academy genuinely has nothing for that slot.

Step 6: Turn the sections back on

For each academy, switch back ON the four toggles you turned off in Step 1. Leave a Future toggle OFF for any academy whose new content is not ready, and turn it on when the content lands.

Step 7: Check all five pages

Open each page and confirm:

  • Each section shows exactly four quarters, not eight. Eight means some old items are still set to Current or Future. Go back to Steps 2 and 3 and check both the Destination Type and Schedule Type columns.
  • The Current heading year matches the destinations and schedules listed under it.
  • The Future heading year matches the destinations and schedules listed under it.
  • Schedule titles use the year each quarter starts in (for 2027-2028: Q1 2027, Q2 2027, Q3 2028, Q4 2028), so "Q3 2028" belongs under 2027-2028.
  • Destination cards appear with their photos, and none shows last year's dates or photo.

The five page addresses are on Where everything lives. If a page looks unchanged, hard refresh: Cmd+Shift+R on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows.

The mistake to watch

The big two are Steps 2 and 3 (flip destinations and schedules) and Step 5. Content moves forward but the headings do not, so everything looks almost right while every heading still shows last year. Check each heading against the cards underneath it. And do not turn the sections back on (Step 6) until Step 4 is done, or visitors will see empty sections.