Attendance Method

Daily attendance is usually used in elementary schools, where the homeroom teacher takes roll in the morning, and sometimes again in the afternoon for half-day absences. (Teachers do not enter separate AM/PM attendance. Instead they update the mark to "Absent Half-Day" if anyone leaves or arrives midday.) This is recommended for group accounts only; otherwise use Class attendance so each teacher can take roll independently.

Period attendance is usually used in middle and high schools, where each teacher takes roll each period/hour. You must define the Bell Schedules, set the school days, and define the periods for each section. These settings are very important, and all your teachers must be taking roll consistently, so this is recommended for group accounts only. Otherwise use Class attendance instead, which is much simpler.

Class attendance is used mostly for individual subscribers or colleges and adult education. Like period attendance, teachers take attendance each class session, but you do not need to set periods. This method counts only how many "classes" a student was present or absent, not "days", so it cannot calculate Average Daily Attendance.

Note: If you are a K-8 or K-12 school, you must split into separate schools for elementary, middle, and high school, so you can take Daily attendance at the elementary level and Period attendance at the secondary levels. Also this is necessary if your middle and high school uses different bell schedules.

Note: Data is stored separately for each method. If you switch to or from Daily attendance after teachers have already entered roll, their old roll will "disappear" and be ignored (it's not deleted though, so you can switch back to restore it). In this case, a prompt will warn you, and you should tell your teachers to print their roll sheets before you switch methods so they can reenter everything later. But if you are switching between Period and Class attendance, it will convert your attendance data for you, so teachers probably won't notice any significant changes (unless you have block periods).

Period Attendance

If Period attendance is selected, you must specify how many minutes a student must be present to count as a full day or half day for ADA calculations. If your state doesn't count half-days, leave it blank. (If your state doesn't use ADA at all, this option is not available to you.)

Note: Teachers must mark a student Present to count (or Excused or Tardy; see below). If they forget to take roll, it's like an absence, which will lower you ADA.

Attendance Codes

You may customize your attendance codes for absent, tardy, present, etc. (There's no limit to the number of codes, so if you run out of spaces, leave the screen and come back to get more blank spaces.) The 1st attendance code is the default, and it must mean the student is present. Teachers can select the 2nd and 3rd attendance codes simply by clicking — e.g., click once for Absent, again for Tardy, and again to return to Present.

The menus specify exactly how each code should be counted on report cards. Tardy and Excused may count differently for the generic Average Daily Attendance (ADA) or state reporting for your specific state:

For example, if "Illness" is set to Excused, it will count as an absence on report cards, but it will not count as an absence for the generic ADA, and for state reporting that would depend on your specific state.

Tardy is considered unexcused. If you want a roll code for Excused Tardy, you must set the menu to Present.

Use "No Record" if you want an explicit code to show the first day a student is "Withdrawn". It's not necessary to use an attendance code for Holidays, because holidays are already defined on the screen, and you cannot enter attendance on non-school days.

Restricting Teachers

These options let you limit what attendance data teachers can edit:

If using Daily attendance, check "Only Homeroom teachers can take roll" to prevent specials teachers from making changes. More specifically, teachers can take roll only for their own homeroom students. You must designate which student belongs to which homeroom teacher on the screen. (Attendance clerks can always edit attendance regardless of this option.)

Set "Don't let teachers change roll after..." to limit how many days or weeks teachers can make changes after a date passes. This also prevents teachers from entering future dates. Uncheck this to allow teachers to change roll on any date. (Admins can always edit roll in Admin Mode for any date.)

Check the "Admin only" checkbox for any attendance code that teachers are not allowed to select or change — e.g., typically teachers may only mark a student present, absent, or tardy, but they cannot change it once the attendance clerk clears an absence, marks a cut, etc.


See also: Attendance (for Admins), Attendance Reports