| Attendance (Teachers) |
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Teachers use the screen to take attendance online, using either the Seating Chart or Roll Sheet. Taking Roll
Click a student to mark them Absent. Click again for Tardy, and again for Present. Or click the legend on the right to select any attendance code. Normally when you mark any student absent or tardy, it marks all other students Present by default. But if no students are absent or tardy, click the "All Present" button.
Another way to mark all students Present is to click the date at the top of the column on the Roll Sheet. That changes all blanks to Present. Click again to change all Present marks to blanks.
You can grant your TA's limited access to take attendance for you, and optionally prevent them from seeing students' attendance records. On the screen, grant them access to "Attendance" or "Scores & Assignments" so they can mark students Present, Absent, or Tardy for the current day only. Grant them access to "Print & See Grades" or higher to edit any date and use all attendance codes.
If you have two or more courses during the same period (e.g. Art 1 and Art 2 during 5th period, or a TA in the same period as a regular class) check the checkbox "Combine period [5] classes" to combine the classes on the same roll sheet / seating chart. Uncheck this if you want each class on a separate roll screen.
For block periods, you can take roll for both periods at once, or just one period at a time, depending on where you click. For example, on the Seating Chart, if you click the student's name, it takes roll for both 1st and 2nd periods, or you can click specifically on the box for 1st or 2nd period to mark just that period. Likewise on the Roll Sheet, if you hold the Shift key and click it marks both periods. For example, if a student is absent 1st period, typically you'd mark them absent both periods. But if they show up at 2nd period, you'd click just 2nd period to mark them present. (Note if you mark a student Tardy for both periods, it actually marks them Tardy just the 1st period and Present the 2nd period.)
Your system admin defines which days are school days, and on which days each period meets (see Bell Schedules). Or for college and adult ed., you can specify which days of the week each class meets by editing each class on the screen.
On the Roll Sheet, use the menus to select how many weeks to view on the screen. (This does not control how long the term is; that is set by your system admin.)
Your admin defines the attendance codes and sets whether you take attendance daily or by class. They may restrict which attendance codes you can use and change. They may also restrict you from making changes after a certain number of days. The "Abs" and "Tar" columns on the Roll Sheet show how many times each student was absent or tardy. Absences include both excused and unexcused absences.
This is totaled for the grading period you have selected in the menu, which is not necessarily the same as how many weeks you have displayed on the screen. For example, you may be viewing only two weeks, but it shows the total for the entire grading period so far. (To "reset" the count, simply switch the menu to the next grading period.)
If a student transfers to a different period of the same course, their attendance totals carry over from the old class. But your roll sheet shows attendance marks only for the dates when the student is actually enrolled in that period. The roll sheet is intentionally blank for dates when the student was not in your class. This means the total count may be higher than what you can see in the roll sheet. This is normal.
Important: Do not back-fill attendance for transfer students! Attendance is for official records. When you take attendance, you are vouching that the student was in your class on that date during that period. If you back-fill attendance for dates when the student was not in your class, you are basically falsifying records, creating conflicting attendance records, and making the attendance totals inaccurate.
You may , or check the "Blank" checkbox to print a blank roll sheet to take attendance by hand.
Students and parents can see complete attendance details when they login, including the dates and total number of absences and tardies for each class and grading period. You can penalize students' grades for absences and tardies. See Attendance Grades
The and screens shows the attendance for the due date of the assignment. This appears after the grade, before the Comment box. For example, if a homework assignment was due on Tuesday, you can see if the student was absent that day so you know why they did not turn it in. Likewise with tests. If it won't let you click or change attendance, a message will appear by your mouse to explain why not: Often teachers forget to start a new gradebook at the start of a new grading period — e.g., it will not let you take roll for 2nd semester until you start a new gradebook for 2nd semester. If using Daily Attendance, you must be the homeroom teacher to take roll. Your admin may restrict you from entering roll on future dates or changing roll after so many days.
Your admin may restrict you from changing certain attendance codes. If a student had transferred from another period, the total will include both periods, even though your roll sheet will show blanks for dates before they transferred. Check each week of your roll sheets to make sure you remembered to take roll and that there are no stray marks. Or ask your admin to check your attendance, since Admin Mode gives a more complete view for troubleshooting, e.g., to see if a student was marked twice for two different periods/classes of the same course. Report Cards total attendance from all teachers (for Period or Class Attendance), so it's normal for Report Cards to have higher totals than your class totals.
If your school uses Period Attendance, the Report Cards show how many days each student was absent, not how many periods. If not all teachers are taking roll consistently, this number will be inaccurate. In this case your admin should switch your school from Period Attendance to Class Attendance.
Your admin may have switched the attendance method from period to daily or vice versa, which hides all old attendance. Ask your admin to restore the setting so you can print your roll sheets, then switch back to manually reenter your roll. |
