Method 3 Daily Procedure: Attendance Using Deviations

1. Change Date

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

2. Initialize Today’s Attendance

Before making any entries for the day, it is necessary to clear the Temporary Attendance Register used the previous day and initialize the attendance for today’s date.

• The information entered into the temporary file is maintained until it is deliberately cleared for a new day.
• If the previous day’s Reports of Classes Missed were not printed, a warning will appear and should not be ignored. Run a Report of Classes Missed to ensure that you have added the previous day's attendance information into the permanent register.

Today’s attendance is initialized by choosing Attendance, Enter Attendance, Initialize Today’s Attendance.

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).

There are 2 ways to use this program:

a. Changing multiple periods: Click on the check boxes for the corresponding periods and then select the attendance code from the drop-down menu as shown below:

b. Changing single periods: With the periods' check boxes unchecked, click the attendance code to be changed and a drop-down menu arrow will appear. By clicking the drop-down menu arrow, you can then change the attendance code as shown below:

4. Enter Student Excursion Lists

Use Attendance, Enter Attendance, Excursions to enter groups of students who are going to be away for the whole day 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.

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

To specify confirmation options, select one of these four 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. Enter Homeroom Attendance

The homeroom attendance is entered into the computer using Attendance, Enter Attendance, Homeroom Attendance.

• Use the Query Method to specify how you would like to enter the homeroom attendance. Although you can enter the absentees individually, it’s more convenient to enter them by homeroom if the attendance information comes to the office by homeroom.

• As you enter the homeroom attendance, information can be verified against any previous entries for the students (i.e. through Excused Before Homeroom or Excursions). Choose one of these options to verify information:

All entries: will ask confirmation for every student to whom you attempt to apply the attendance entry

Previous: will ask confirmation for only those student's who already have an attendance entry

• Choose the desired attendance code from the Attendance Code pull down menu. Once this is done to mark a student Absent, highlight the student’s name, and then click on the Apply button (or double-click the student’s name). The attendance code will appear beside the student’s name. You can give many students the same code all at once by holding down the CTRL key and clicking on student names. Then click the Apply button.

• As you enter the attendance for a homeroom the word "Yes" will appear on the right side of the box under Entered. If you don't want those homerooms displayed, click the Hide Previously Entered Homerooms check box. This will allow you to keep track of which homerooms' attendance you have already entered.

• Click the Details button to display a student’s timetable and attendance entries for the day. You can also change the attendance entry here for any period of the day.

• Click the Notes button, and enter a date and a note for the student’s attendance notepad.

6. Print Teachers’ Absentees

The Teachers’ Absentees Sheets provide the teachers with information about student attendance in the specific classes they will teach today, and it provides a convenient form for reporting deviations from the expected attendance. Choose Attendance, Print Teachers’ Absentees to print Teachers’ Absentees.

• One Teachers’ Absentees Sheet will be printed for each teacher
• It’s probably best to print these sheets by room for the person who must distribute the sheets to teachers immediately. If teachers will be picking them up from their mailboxes, it might be more convenient to print the sheets in alphabetical order
• You also have the option of adding the day's events with each attendance sheet. This is a good way to remind all staff members of events For example, many schools have a staff meeting every Monday after school. A written reminder about this staff meeting could be added to the bottom of every teacher sheet. Events can be added from File, School Setup, Calendar, Edit. 

7. Print Today’s Absentees List

The Print Today’s Absentees feature lets you customize the attendance codes and printing order for a printed absentee list.  Choose Attendance, Print Today's Absentees.

• Specify the printing order by clicking the option button that you want.  Choose from Alphabetical, Homeroom, Class or Teacher.
• Select the attendance codes that you want.  To print any and/or all codes, click the Any Codes check box.  To print selected ones only, select the codes and click the These Codes Only check box.
• Click the Name Formats tab and make printing option selections about how you want the students' and teachers' names printed.
• Click the Student Information tab and choose what personal student information you want printed.

Click View to see a preview; click Print to print immediately.

8. Teachers Record Discrepancies on the Teacher Sheets

The Teachers’ Absentees Sheets are intended to be delivered by volunteer students during the class following homeroom.

The Teachers’ Absentees sheets will indicate the students expected to be absent in each of the teacher’s classes. Students who are to leave throughout the day for individual appointments, field trips, team competitions, etc. and students who called in sick in the morning will be marked with an asterisk (*) and an indication of the type of attendance. The asterisk indicates to the teacher that a student who is seen at the school but is not in class has made an explanation ahead of time to the office (i.e., an Excused Before Homeroom or Excursions entry).

For one reason or another, the list of students expected in class may not always agree with the facts of their attendance. Only the deviations from the list are to be written at the bottom of the sheet along with the type of attendance (A, P, or L), the period, the student’s Student Letters (optional), and the student’s name.

Any deviation from the Teachers’ Absentees Sheets should be reported even though the teacher may know the reason for the absence. Each discrepancy between the attendance which the office entries predict and the attendance recorded on the Teachers’ Sheets may produce a Deviation Report when the Reports of Classes Missed are printed. At the end of the day, the teachers must remember to pass their sheets in to the office so that the information they recorded may be entered into the computer.

9. Enter Students Who Signed In or Out

The students may be signed in or out at any time during the school day after the homeroom attendance has been entered. A few entries may be made at a time or more conveniently, all entries may be made at once at the end of the day.

• When students leave before the end of the school day, they are to sign out. The first period each student is to miss is to be entered. 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 to school, they are to sign in. The period during which they will first attend class is to be entered. If they have no class in the period entered, the computer will use the first period in which they should attend class.

Students who sign in or out during the day are entered through Attendance, Enter Attendance, Office (Sign In/Out).

10. Teacher's Deviations

You can enter information on the Teachers’ Absentees Sheets at any time during the school day after entering homeroom attendance by choosing Attendance, Enter Attendance, Teacher Deviations. In order to activate Teacher Deviations option, choose Attendance, Attendance Parameters and check the Teacher's sheets (report discrepancies) option.

• First select a teacher and then a period for which you will make an entry.
• You can change the attendance code by clicking another Attendance Code from a column.
• If you have cancelled a class, there will be a black column. Here you can add to or remove from the cancelled class, if for example, the weather causes a bus cancellation but the in city students still attend class.

11. Cancel Class

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.