Attendance Discrepancies

ATTENDANCE DATA

The attendance data is an excellent tool to determine if students have difficulty attending school. View attendance data is reported through a variety of perspectives. For example, multiple chart views allow you to isolate and/or compare unexcused absence averages, tardy averages, and absence averages.

Aggregation Options: Absence Rate, Tardies, Days Absent, and Days with Unexcused Absences.  

A second Unexcused Absences breakdown is available, which returns a more "school day" base approach to the data. 

Unexcused Absences Options: Absence Code, Period/Class, Day of the Week, School, Grade Level. 

However, discrepancies may be encountered between the data displayed in this widget and attendance for which students are held accountable. 

NOTE: Any absence (class, day, period) is a singular occurrence and may be flagged as unexcused. Attendance data is usually measured for each class; it is not measured for the day; instead, it must be accumulated over the student's schedule for the given day to create a generalized "school day" aggregate value representing a total day's measure. 

Example: If a student slept late, missed the first two periods of the day, and did not bring in a note, the two (2) periods would be flagged as unexcused, and the student would have accumulated two (2) unexcused absences.  If the student skipped the entire day, all six periods, the student would have accumulated six (6) unexcused absences. Both students in the examples would have a count of 1 day with Unexcused absences because they each had at least one unexcused absence on that day. 

DISCREPANCIES

One of the best ways to identify discrepancies is to have school district Skyward personnel knowledgeable about student schedules and attendance procedures in each school review the attendance widget for a single student in courses that tend to have attendance discrepancies. Some common examples of courses that tend to have attendance discrepancies include: running start-holding courses, zero period, advisory courses, rotating schedules, and block schedules.

Below are the two Skyward menu paths to the data that SDS uses to count a course or class(section/meet) as take attendance and will cause the period/day to be populated with data (i.e., A, E, O, T, Checkmark) in the attendance widget. (SDS cannot advise districts on Skyward configurations. The district should consult their Skyward District Contact before making changes. This information is being provided as a courtesy).

• Skyward Menu Path: WS\OF\CS\BC\CM\CM, search for the course, edit the course, and observe the Keep Attendance checkbox - This will affect all classes(sections/meets) attached to this course.

• Skyward Menu Path: WS\OF\CS\BC\CM\CM, search for the course, expand the course, expand the section details, edit the meet, and observe the days checkboxes marked for Attendance in the Meet Pattern - This will affect this class(section/meet) only.

 School districts with an SIS other than Skyward contact SDS to find the correct attendance logic.