18 Year old YM vs 18 Year old YW

In LCR Member List, how come when I print a list of Priests it includes 18 year olds, print a list of Laurels it does not include 18 year olds. When the Stake Presidency asks for a lists of Laurels, they are expecting the list to include the Laurels that they know are still in High School and attending Young Women. When they move on from high school, sure take them off the Laurel list. What do we need to do different? Why the inconsistency between YM/YW lists? I suspect the clerks are not coding anything different between the 18 year old YM & YW in high school, but maybe they are.

ramonc wrote:In LCR Member List, how come when I print a list of Priests it includes 18 year olds, print a list of Laurels it does not include 18 year olds. When the Stake Presidency asks for a lists of Laurels, they are expecting the list to include the Laurels that they know are still in High School and attending Young Women. When they move on from high school, sure take them off the Laurel list. What do we need to do different? Why the inconsistency between YM/YW lists? I suspect the clerks are not coding anything different between the 18 year old YM & YW in high school, but maybe they are.

Yes, there is a difference. MLS will move a YM to Elders when they are ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood or when they turn 19 (if not ordained by that time). MLS will move YW to the Relief Society when they turn 18. The difference is that MLS can use the priesthood ordination to help determine whether an 18 year old should be moved or not. It doesn't have such an indicator for YW.

If you have a YW who is 18 but is still in high school and should remain in the YW organization then you need to manually move her back to YW from RS. To do so find her in the Members list of the Relief Society organization, click on the Remove link next to her entry and then select the Young Women as her new organization. Later when she does move to RS you'll need to repeat that again but in reverse.

May I suuggest someone run up the flagpole that for USA wards that automove of YW be changed to happen at 19 like it does for YM. Most 18 year old YW stay in YW until they graduate or turn 19. Handbook 10.1.5 allows this. Clerks could then move to RS when a conscious decision is made my her and her Bishop to goto RS as an 18 year old like the handbook suggests instead of just moving them when they turn 18.

ramonc wrote:May I suuggest someone run up the flagpole that for USA wards that automove of YW be changed to happen at 19 like it does for YM. Most 18 year old YW stay in YW until they graduate or turn 19. Handbook 10.1.5 allows this. Clerks could then move to RS when a conscious decision is made my her and her Bishop to goto RS as an 18 year old like the handbook suggests instead of just moving them when they turn 18.

To make a suggestion like this you'll need to send a message to local unit support. As users we can discuss changes like this in the forums but the only way to make sure that the suggestion or request is seen by those who can make a decision is to contact local unit support (for MLS issues) or use a feedback link on lds.org (for lds.org issues).

ramonc wrote:Most 18 year old YW stay in YW until they graduate or turn 19.

What happens to "most" is likely dependent on local age restrictions for starting school. In my area graduates are a mix of 17 and 18yo. So a age 19 rule would never kick in unless the ward wasn't on the ball.

That said, there certainly is room for more intelligent handling of the transfer.

ramonc wrote:May I suuggest someone run up the flagpole that for USA wards that automove of YW be changed to happen at 19 like it does for YM. Most 18 year old YW stay in YW until they graduate or turn 19. Handbook 10.1.5 allows this. Clerks could then move to RS when a conscious decision is made my her and her Bishop to goto RS as an 18 year old like the handbook suggests instead of just moving them when they turn 18.

The standard in the handbook is for the change to happen at 18 "or in the coming year", which is what MLS reflects. The alternative is to either move to RS earlier or later, depending on what will lead to the member remaining the most active. Since the alternate is what requires an active change, it makes sense (at lease to me) to leave it as is.

ramonc wrote:they are expecting the list to include the Laurels that they know are still in High School and attending Young Women.

Of course, what they are expecting can only happen if your clerks in every ward progress them manually at the correct time if their 18th birthday is not correct. Agreeing on some arbitrary "auto-progression" will never give everyone a correct list. I wish the progression from YW became a task, and forced a decision from the clerk with direction from the YW leaders and the bishop. When a clerk log's in, the system could ask him:

The following YW have had their 18th birthday. Shall they be progressed into RS or stay in the YW program?

Or if there were a checkbox for who is currently in high school – this would be helpful for tracking seminary enrollment, also.

We also experienced a more unusual problem that we have a Laurel who graduated high school at 19. She was very active, but for circumstances I'm not aware of, happened to 19 when she graduated. I agree that auto-move isn't going to get things right. Maybe there needs to be some kind of mechanism to encourage review of people, but not automatically move them.

Another possibility is to somehow record what grade they are in (years before graduation?). Then all the 12th graders advance at graduation. It might come in handy for Institute and Seminary reports too.