Attendance Entry
Setup > Attendance > Attendance Parameters
The following fields may appear on the attendance parameters form:
Attendance method(s) required by school: Select 1 option from the 3 possible options:
- Morning/afternoon: With this method, attendance is entered twice a day, corresponding to the morning and the afternoon attendance. This is also sometimes referred to as half day attendance. If this option is selected, no other attendance parameters are applicable.
- By period: With this method, attendance is entered for each class in the student’s timetable.
- Both: With this option, some students will have attendance entered for the morning/afternoon, and some will have it entered for each class.
Default attendance method: This card only appears if the school requires both morning/afternoon and by period attendance. This area allows you to select the default attendance method to be given to a newly added student. Since typically the attendance method is determined by the student’s grade, it will list all the grades in the school along with the default method. Select any grade (click the row) to change the attendance method.
By period settings
This area only appears if the ‘Attendance method(s) required by school’ field is set to either by period or both. The following fields must be set:
Is homeroom attendance to be taken and recorded as its own entry: Check the box if the students go to a homeroom and attendance is taken and recorded for that homeroom. A distinct homeroom attendance entry will be recorded. Typically, if homeroom is at the start of a period, and the teacher only takes attendance once, this field is set to No (unchecked) so that the attendance taken by the teacher is recorded for the class only and references to homeroom attendance are hidden in the application.
First afternoon period: Select the period that represents the start of the afternoon. For example, if period 1 and 2 are in the morning, and period 3 is in the afternoon, enter 3. This setting is used when converting period attendance into am/pm attendance.
How is attendance taken for classes taught in more than 1 period: Select 1 of the following 2 options:
- Enter once per day: This is the option that is typically selected because multiple period classes are typically in sequential periods, and the teacher only needs to enter attendance once. If this option is selected, an additional field called Attendance totals will appear to determine if attendance for these classes is to be counted once for the day, or to be counted by period. For example, if student is absent for a double period class, the teacher records Absent once. When reports count the number of times the student was absent for that class, do you want this to count as 1 absence (select Count by day), or 2 absences (select Count by period).
Enter once per period: This option means that the teacher is expected to record attendance for each period where that class is scheduled. This option would be recommended if a school schedules classes in non-sequential period (e.g., the class is scheduled in period 1 and period 4 on the same day).