thanks again - i see the problem, in our database the NID column does not allow NULLS.  So I changed 

WHERE nid IS NULL
to
WHERE nid...

Thank you for your reply, Alan.  I modified your query to populate the temp table with actual student ID numbers.   When I run, it does create the temp table,...

Thank you, Lutz for your quick reply. I'm reading the two articles on cross-tabs and they look promising. I'm not sure what you mean by having the application...