Attendance Rules and Calculations

Contents

Introduction

Oklahoma State Reporting supports Meeting Attendance only, Daily Attendance is not supported.

All student attendance information is calculated on a half-day basis, with the exception of early childhood or kindergarten programs, which are recorded on a full-day basis. To be recorded as present for half a day, a student must be in attendance for two of the first three hours of the school day or two of the final three hours of the school day.

The Nightly Process processes attendance by calculating the number of potential minutes the student is scheduled to attend in a day, as well as the number of absent minutes, if any. The Attendance Register and Transportation Register use the data generated by the nightly process.

AM and PM Definitions

The AM part and the PM part of the day are user-defined, based on the bell schedule; therefore, each bell schedule must define the part of the day to which the periods belong.

The first 180 minutes are considered the first half of the day and are counted as AM minutes. The remaining time is considered the second half of the day and are counted as PM minutes. The attendance is then counted for each half day as follows:

• If Present minutes are greater than or equal to 120, the student is considered half-day present.
• If Present minutes are less than 120, the student is considered half-day absent.

Note: To ensure attendance is calculated correctly, make sure students are enrolled for a minimum of 120 minutes in both the AM and PM sessions.

For instructions on setting up attendance, see School Setup.

Two-Thirds Rule

The student must be present for more than two-thirds of the AM or PM part of the day to be considered present in that part of the day. AM and PM are calculated independently from one another.

Required Setup

• Set the AM/PM designation on the bell schedule.
• Refresh Attendance Views must be run to view new changes to attendance or bell schedule.

The calculation is as follows:

• If Present minutes are equal to or more than two-thirds of the total possible present minutes in the AM, the student is considered half-day present. For example, if a student was 100 minutes present out of 150 minutes in the AM, the student will be half-day present.
• The calculation is repeated for PM minutes.

Excused and Unexcused Absences

Excused and Unexcused Absences are calculated as follows:

• If an absence code is from the "Excused" category, it is counted as an excused absence.
• If an absence code is from the "Unexcused" category, it is counted as an unexcused absence.

Note: When a student has both Excused and Unexcused absences in one session (either AM or PM), PowerSchool counts a half-day unexcused absence only when the Unexcused minutes are greater than the Excused minutes.

Present Attendance

When there is no attendance record for a student for the periods in a school day, the student is considered present for the periods.

• If total minutes scheduled for the day are greater than or equal to 240 minutes, the student is considered full-day present for that day.
• If total minutes scheduled for the date are greater than or equal to 120 but less than 240 minutes, the student is considered half-day present for that day.
• If total minutes scheduled for the date are less than 120 minutes, no presence is counted for that day.

Absent Attendance

When there are absent attendance records for a student for the periods in the school day, the student is considered absent for those periods.