Attendance Entry Method 2: Class Attendance Using a Scanner

If your school has an Optical Mark Reader (Scanner), each class taught during the day has a specially designed scanner sheet onto which the teacher fills in the bubbles for absent and late students. These sheets are fed into the scanner every period or just once a day depending of what is set in the Attendance Parameters. Administrators can find out about deviant attendance as soon as it is entered.

The Maplewood attendance programs may be used with many scanners. If one of these scanners is available, you can enter homeroom or class attendance through the scanner by using Homeroom Attendance (Scanner) or Class Attendance (Scanner).

Before the scanner may be used for attendance, Homeroom/Class Attendance Scanner Sheets must be ordered from your scanner representative. Then   Class or Homeroom attendance must be printed onto the scanner sheets using your printer. These sheets will have the students’ names on the scanner sheets along with some coding required by the scanner.  You can choose Maintenance, Test Scanner Sheets to make sure they were printed properly before sending them to the teachers.

Select Class Attendance (Scanner) and indicate which of the major scanners is to be used. Then a list of all the classes in the school is displayed on the screen.  Each class teacher records the class attendance onto his/ her Homeroom/Class Attendance Sheet by filling in with pencil the appropriate bubble (A or L) for the affected students on the appropriate day of the week. These sheets are then sent to the office.

Class Attendance (Scanner) automatically calls Print Absentees List that prints a list of absent students with their home telephone numbers. The list may be printed alphabetically or by homeroom, single or double spaced, and with or without the parents’ information.

• school must own an Optical Mark Reader (Scanner)
• class lists are printed weekly onto scanner sheets purchased from a scanner vendor
• teachers fill in the bubbles for absent and late students
• if a teacher bubbles a student as absent and then the student shows up (late), the teacher can bubble the late bubble without erasing the absent bubble (both are bubbled but only the late is read)
• each period (or at end of day), scanner sheets are fed into the scanner (may in morning only)
• administrators can obtain information about deviant attendance as soon as it is scanned
• Use File, Maintenance, Test Scanner Sheets to see if the sheets will be printed properly

Daily Procedure: Attendance Using a Scanner

1. Change Date

Choose File, Change Date to select today’s date.

2. Initialize Today’s Attendance

Choose Attendance, Enter Attendance, Initialize Today’s Attendance. Each day's attendance is kept in a Temporary Attendance Register which is changed throughout the entry of attendance information. Once all of the information has been entered and the Reports of Classes Missed have been printed.

Clearing the Temporary Attendance Register more than once between uses will not cause any problems.

3. Enter Students Excused Before Homeroom

Choose Attendance, Enter Attendance, Excused Before Homeroom and enter students who are going to be away for the whole day or for part of the day (if known at this point). You can use this option at any point during the day (if using the scanner method of attendance). See the Excused Before Homeroom graphic. There are 2 ways to use this program:

1. Changing multiple periods: Click on the periods and then select the attendance code, or click the top box for all.

2. Changing single periods: With the periods unchecked, click the attendance code in the specific period to be changed and a drop down arrow will appear. By clicking the drop down arrow, you can then change the attendance code.

4. Enter Student Excursion Lists

Choose Attendance, Enter Attendance, Excursions to enter groups of students who are going to be away for the whole or for part of the day (if known at this point). This could be an excursion group, the entire school, students in a specific grade or homeroom, students with a specific defined character, students in a specific class, or any other group definable through an Inquiry list.

When you click the Apply attendance note to excursion check box, the screen will expand to include the note entry area.

The Confirmation frame has 4 options:

• Change All will change the attendance for only the expected attendance in the office entry field regardless of what may have been previously entered in that period’s attendance.
• No previous entries will change the attendance for all the students except those who have a previous expected office entry field.
• Confirm previous entries will change the attendance for all the students without any previous attendance entries. It will prompt each student who already has an entry so that you can decide if you wish to change it. The program will overlook present entries. This is the recommended option.
• Confirm All will prompt each student so that you can decide if you wish to make changes. The program will overwrite anything including present and not entered. This would be useful if only some of the students in the excursion list are to be changed.

5. Homeroom Attendance (if applicable)

If you are taking homeroom attendance as set in the Attendance Parameters, choose Attendance, Enter Attendance, Homeroom Attendance (Scanner). Scanner errors can be displayed or printed.

1. Enter a threshold value for your scanner. The threshold is a number from 25 to 99 that determines how sensitive the scanner is in reading the marks on the scanner form. A lower number reads lighter marks. You can change this by clicking the Scanner button.
2. The list of homerooms will appear on the screen. As each homeroom sheet is scanned, it is removed from the list.
3. Press the End Of Batch button on the scanner to exit the program (i.e. when finished).
4. Use the Activity tab to see what you scanner reads.

6. Scan First Period Class Attendance

Scan the period 1 attendance sheets using Attendance, Enter Attendance, Class Attendance (Scanner).

1. Select Period 1 from the drop-down list.
2. Click the Scanner button.
3. Select a scanner from the list if the one displayed is incorrect.
4. Select a COM port and then configure it in the boxes below.
5. Enter a threshold value for your scanner. The threshold is a number from 25 to 99 that determines how sensitive the scanner is in reading the marks on the scanner form. A lower the number reads lighter marks.
6. Press the End Of Batch button on the scanner to exit the program (i.e. when finished).

7. Print Today’s Absentees

Use Attendance, Print Today’s Absentees to print a list of absentees and make calls home if necessary. (If taking homeroom attendance, you may print this immediately after step 5 or after step 6).

1. Select the printing order.
2. Select the Attendance Codes.
3. Today’s Class Attendance Entered Yet? This question should be answered as No unless you have entered all the day’s attendance. Some schools reprint this at the end of the day (and answer Yes to this question).
4. If you wish to print only those students with certain attendance codes (e.g. just the students who were late), this is set up with the Allow Attendance Codes box and These Codes Only check box. For example, if you wish students who have Absent recorded for every period, enter A for Allowed Codes and Yes for These Codes Only. If you wish students who have at least one A, enter A for Allowed Codes and No for These Codes Only. You can also select multiple codes.
5. Click the Name Formats tab and enter student and teacher printing orders.
6. Click the Student Information tab and enter student printing options.
7. Click the Fonts tab to change the appearance (optional).

8. (Optional) Print Teachers’ Absentees for Reference Only

As an option, you can print teachers’ sheets to provide only information. To do this, choose Attendance, Print Teachers’ Absentees. These sheets give the teacher an idea of which students they can expect to be missing from their classes. See Attendance Entry Method 3: By Deviations for further information.

9. Scan Attendance Sheets for Remaining Periods

Choose Attendance, Enter Attendance, Class Attendance (Scanner) to scan the remaining scanner sheets for the other periods. You can do this as soon as you get them or you may wait and scan them at the end of the day. See Step 6 for more information.

10. Enter Students Who Signed In or Out

Students may be signed in or out at any time during the school day after the homeroom attendance has been entered. You can make a few entries at a time or you can enter everything at the end of the day.

• When students leave before the end of the school day, they are to sign out for the first period to be missed (e.g. for the first period a teacher would mark the student as absent). If they have no class in the period entered, the computer will enter the period of the first class they do have scheduled after the period entered.
• When students arrive late, they must sign in. You should then enter the period when they will first attend class. If they have no class in the period that you enter, the computer will use the first period when they should attend class.

Choosing Attendance, Enter Attendance, Office (Sign In/Out) enters students who sign in or out during the day.

11. Cancel Class (if applicable)

On those occasions when a class is not conducted, the class should be cancelled to prevent deviations from the expected attendance. You can also cancel all classes taught in a specific period. Choose Attendance, Enter Attendance, Cancel Class.

Note: The entry of cancelled classes must be made just before printing the Reports of Classes Missed. Any subsequent attendance entries will write on top of the information of the cancelled class. If you have to enter added information after cancelling classes, the situation can be easily corrected by cancelling the classes again.

12. Print the Reports of Classes Missed

Using Attendance, Print Reports of Classes Missed, print the desired "end of the day" reports. Once the reports have been printed, the attendance is automatically stored in the Permanent Register.

13. Examine Deviation Reports

Examine the Deviation Reports (printed in step 12) and arrange student interviews to resolve the unexplained attendance. Make changes to the students’ attendance registers.