Many schools want to track specific items about a student’s attendance. For example, did the student leave early (“Early Dismissal” or “Half Day”), or was the student suspended. If a student is expected to be absent  due to vacation or medical reasons, an administrator might want to note that down in the Attendance module, even if it’s several days in the future.

The current Attendance Module within QuickSchools is designed for a homeroom teacher or subject teacher to take attendance when class starts. Often times, the teacher does not know the reason why a student is absent or tardy. This is why, the Attendance Roster only has 5 available settings: Present, Absent, Tardy, Absent with Excuse and Tardy with Excuse (Note: some of these fields can be hidden or renamed based on specific requirements of your school).

Once attendance is taken, an administrator or office manager can review the attendance taken for the day, and make any adjustments based on follow-ups with the parent. So for example, if a student is marked “Absent”, the administrator or office manager would typically call the parent and verify what happened, and would then update the system accordingly (if the student is sick, for example, the admin can change the record from “Absent” to “Absent with Excuse” and add remarks).

For these types of situations, we recommend using the Attendance Codes App. With this app, an administrator can define any number of scenarios that can be applied to a student attendance record. The administrator has some control on how changes to the attendance record would affect the students overall attendance (for example, if a student leaves early, does that count as the student being present or absent). And finally, the app keeps the Attendance screen simple for teachers, so teachers are not confused by all the attendance codes that an administrator might set up.

Here is a summary of benefits:

• Keep the Attendance screen the simple for teachers who take attendance. They don’t need to know what administrative changes are made (or can be made) to the attendance record.
• Set up as many attendance codes as needed, and apply them in an administrative fashion, after the initial attendance is taken when class starts.
• Control how attendance codes affect overall attendance. For example, a student can be both tardy and left early.
• Control what information is shared with teachers. For example, you can set up future attendance codes for vacation or medical leave, and share that in the Attendance screen, so that the teacher taking attendance knows that the student is excused from class that day.

If you haven’t done so already, check out our blog post about the Attendance Codes App on the QuickSchools App Store. And as always, leave us a comment if you have any suggestions.

http://blog.quickschools.com/2014/02/05/custom-attendance-codes/