How can teachers take student attendance in their classes?

Most schools will track attendance and generally student attendance is taken at the beginning of the class, by teachers themselves. Taking attendance allows recording whether a student is present, absent or late to class. This can, in case of repeated absences, help track absenteeism, and take measures such as contacting parents or apply disciplinary sanctions.
A system like RosarioSIS helps teachers take attendance through a clear interface, allowing them to simply mark students who are absent, with the help of a tablet for example.

In this use case, we are going to first configure a course and calendars, along with all the details you should take care of. Then, we are going to show how teachers actually take attendance. Finally, we are going to consult attendance as an administrator.

This will involve the Attendance, Scheduling and School modules. Those 3 modules are core modules of RosarioSIS.

Below are step-by-step instructions.

Configuration

First, we are going to review the attendance codes.

1. Go to the Attendance > Attendance Codes program.
2. As you can see, we have 4 predefined codes: "Absent", "Excused Absence", "Present" and "Tardy".

"Present" is the default code, and it will be preselected when taking attendance. "Excused Absence" is of the "Office Only" type, so teachers won't have access to it. "Excused Absence" also has a State Code of "Absent". Please change that if you prefer an excused absence to not count as an absence.

Next, we are going to review the course period's configuration.

1. Go to the Scheduling > Courses program.
2. Select (or create) a subject, a course, and a course period.
3. Please make sure the marking period is the current quarter / semester or the year. Here it is "FY" (Full Year).
4. Please make sure the course period has at least one period and day. Here it is "Half Day AM" from Monday to Friday.
5. Please make sure the "Attendance" option is checked under the Takes Attendance field.
6. Please note the selected calendar. Here it is the "Main" calendar.

Now, we are going to review the calendar.

1. Go to the School > Calendars program.
2. Select the "Main" calendar from the dropdown at the top of the screen.
3. Please make sure school days, or course days are in green.

Finally, we are going to review students enrolled in the course.

1. Go to the Students > Student Info program and click on the Advanced Search link.
2. Open the Scheduling widget and click on the "Choose" link. Select the course period and click Submit.
3. In case no students are listed, please enroll at least one student before continuing. For this, go to the Scheduling > Student Schedule program.
4. Click on the first student in the list and check his calendar.
5. Here the calendar is "Main", so that's all good.
6. In case the calendar differs, please review it from the School > Calendars program. Then, make sure course days do match with the student's calendar.

Repeat this for as many students as there are in the class.

Take Attendance

Now let's see how the course teacher actually take attendance in the system.

1. Log in as a teacher and go to the Attendance > Take Attendance program.
2. Select the right course from the left menu if need be.
3. Select the next course day using the date picker in case there is no class today.
4. For each student in the list, select "Present", "Tardy" or "Absent". "Present" being the preselected / default option, you will only need to spot students who are absent. Click Save.

Consult Attendance

Finally, let's see how we can consult attendance taken by the teacher, and how the office can edit it.

1. Go to the Attendance > Administration program.
2. Click on the student's name in the list.
3. Click on the "Absent" code in the list and change it to "Excused Absence". Enter the justification in the Office Comment field and click Update.

That's all for this use case! Browse other use cases.

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