teacherhelper 0.0.6

Useful abstractions and CLI to make teaching more scriptable.

Overview

This is a library of stuff that I have, used to automate my work as a teacher. For the most part, it's been the primary means for me learning object oriented programming, and has had a history of massive revision as I continue to learn and fix my mistakes. Most recently, in late summer 2021, I deleted most of the project except the parts I actually use, and I plan to continue adding to it throughout this school year; hopefully adding some things that are actually useful!

Installation

You can install this package via pip:

pip install teacherhelper

Usage

Once installed, the th command provides the following CLI utility:

usage: th [-h] [--student STUDENT] [--parent PARENT] [--new]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --student STUDENT, -s STUDENT
                        Lookup a student and print the result
  --parent PARENT, -p PARENT
                        Lookup a parent and print the result
  --new                 Regenerate the database by parsing student.csv and parent.csv in the $HELPER_DATA directory.

API

The Helper object provides an object oriented interface for accessing the imported data as well as sending emails if the optional EMAIL_USERNAME and EMAIL_PASSWORD environment variables are set. This makes any kind of scripting involving school information much more accessible.

import teacherhelper

name = 'tommey'  # Timmy needs a typing lesson

# the classmethod read_cache instantiates the helper object with all the
# data previously imported and cached with `th --new`.
helper = teacherhelper.Helper.read_cache()

result = helper.find_nearest_match(name)  # returns Student | None
if result:
    print(result)
else:
    print(f'{name} not found')

# there is also an `exhaustive_search` method which allows you to search within
# subgroups of students at a lower confidence level, allowing dirtier data to
# be more usable if you know that you are looking at a particular homeroom,
# for example
name = 'toezmmy'  # come on Tommy
tommy_homeroom = helper.homerooms["Tommy's Teacher"].students
result = helper.exhaustive_search(name, tommy_homeroom, threshold=40)
if result:
    print(result)
else:
    print(f'{name} not found')

# finally, Helper has a find_parent function, which returns a *student*
# by searching for the parent's name
parent = 'Lisa Tommymom'
result = helper.find_parent(name)
if result:
    # the method still returns a student object! This is usually what you want
    assert isinstance(result, teacherhelper.entities.Student)

    # you can still refer back to the parent from the student
    parent_name = result.primary_contact.name
    parent_email = result.primary_contact.email

Extensive Documentation

There is no formal documentation besides this README. After my latest late summer razing of the not-so-useful parts of the library, pretty little is left! Please review the source code on GitHub to learn more.

Initial Setup via th --new

The module will work with data in one directory of your machine. You should define the path to this directory as an environment variable: HELPER_DATA.

In that folder, you should put two csv files that contain the data you want to populate the module with: students.csv and guardians.csv.

students.csv should contain the following exact columns:

• first name
• last name
• grade level
• homeroom teacher
• email address 1
• birth date

guardians.csv should contain the following exact columns:

• guardian first name
• guardian last name
• student first name
• student last name
• primary contact
• guardian email address 1
• guardian mobile phone
• guardian phone
• guardian work phone
• comments
• allow contact
• student resides with
• relation to student