The following memo was shared with WSFR Regional Managers on June 14th 2021 for dissemination to the Regional Grant Specialists, State FACs, and State Hunter Ed Coordinators. Legacy R5 and Legacy R7 don't have need to have any existing projects re-entered and may consider this an FYI. 

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The TRACS Working Group, with concurrence from the JTF, has removed “# of Certificates” as an Objective under the Training and Education Strategy in the TRACS Matrix.  The change consolidates Hunter Education reporting under “Students Trained”.  The existence of the additional “Certificates Issued” objective was causing confusion among users, which the Working Group was concerned could compromise data quality. 

All “Hunter Education” activities will now be reported as “# of Students” and additionally tagged at Level 2 as Archery – Hunting, Archery – Shooting, Firearms – Hunting, Firearms – Shooting, or Trapping.   "Aquatic" and "Technical" training remain separate Objectives.  Because Level 2 Tags are not quantified, TRACS will only report the total number of students trained.  Specific numbers of students per Level 2 tag will require a hand count. 

To date, 16 grants have been reported under “Certificates”. Debbie Wircenske from PAR Branch will reach out to (or already has contacted) WSFR Grant Managers assigned to each grant to identify the appropriate Level 2 tags and to get them re-entered under the new objective.  The TRACS Development Team will write a script to transfer the records to the Hunter Ed objective, by-passing the need to unapprove, then re-approve approve the projects.  

At the annual workshop this fall, the TRACS WG will consider whether to recommend establishing separate Hunter Education and Firearms Education objectives in order to report out specific numbers of students for each.  This change also potentially effects WSFR’s P-TRACS “certificates” measure.  Tim Smith will make a recommendation to the WSFR Managers to update the P-TRACS measure to align with TRACS Reporting.