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Attendance Setup: Key Elements

WAVE Attendance and Calendar Changes during COVID

Beginning in the 2020-2021 school year, the WAVE has requested updates for tracking attendance during Distance Learning.

Calendar Membership Type

Add a new DVL membership type to the calendar setup.  This type is required for any day where ALL students of a school are remotely doing distance learning.  If students attend school in person, then use the standard In Session type.

Attendance Code Setup

Added new attendance codes to each school's attendance code list - DVP, DVA, and COV. 


For information about the announcement, see PowerSchool SIS Oklahoma State Reporting - Attendance Setup for 2020-2021 School Year on the PowerSchool Community.

District Level

Calendar Membership Type

Navigation: Start Page, District Setup, Calendar Membership Types

Set up these codes as is for Oklahoma State Reporting:

  • IN = In Session
  • H = Holiday
  • PD = Professional Day
  • PT = Parent/Teacher Conference

  • DVL = Distance/Virtual Learning Day

    DVL is only to be used when all students at the school are distance/virtual for the day.

School Level

Attendance Preferences Setup

Set up Meeting Attendance:

Oklahoma State Reporting requires meeting attendance only. This must be set up on the Attendance Preferences page.

  1. Navigate to Start Page > School Setup > Attendance Preferences.
  2. Select Meeting checkbox to enable meeting attendance.
  3. Click Submit.

Set up multiple character attendance codes:

Single-character attendance codes can be changed to multiple-character attendance codes on the Attendance Preferences page.

  1. Navigate to Start Page > School Setup > Attendance Preferences.
  2. Select Enable multiple-character attendance codes.
  3. Click Submit.

Attendance Code Categories

IMPORTANT: The Attendance Code Category is case-sensitive and codes must be set up and spelled exactly as indicated below. These codes are case sensitive. Other fields can be set up based on user preference.

The following attendance code categories are required:

CodeNameDescription

Excused

ExcusedExcused

Unexcused

UnexcusedUnexcused

Suspension

Suspension

In-School Suspension

SDASDAStudent Daily Attendance
OSSSIFOut-of-School SuspensionOut-of-School Suspension


Add Attendance Code Category:

  1. Navigate to Start Page > School Setup > Attendance Code Categories.
  2. Click New and enter the following:
  1. Code = "OSSSIF"
  2. Recommended Name = Out-of-School Suspension
  3. Recommended Description = Out-of-School Suspension
  • Click Submit.


Notes

All attendance codes with a Presence Status of Absent must be set to Excused or Unexcused for absences to be correctly categorized.

Confirm that Attendance Code Categories for Excused, Unexcused, In School Suspension, and Student Daily Attendance are set up and spelled as “Excused,” “Unexcused,” “Suspension,” and “SDA”.

Attendance code categories are associated with a specific school, but not a specific school year; that is, they are copied from year to year.

OSSSIF is required for reporting Out-of-School Suspensions. Oklahoma State Department of Education (OK SDE) has provided new guidelines for reporting suspensions in Guidance for Attendance and Suspensions.


Attendance Codes

Navigation: Start Page, School Setup, Attendance Codes

The following codes must be set up:

  • FDA
    • Description: Full Day Absent
    • Present Status: Absent
    • Clear the checkboxes for Counts toward Attendance and Membership
  • HDA
    • Description: Half Day Absent
    • Present Status: Absent
    • Clear the checkboxes for Counts toward Attendance and Membership
  • COV
    • Description: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
    • Present Status: Absent
  • DVP
    • Description: Distance Learning Present
    • Present Status: Present
  • DVA
    • Description: Distance Learning Absent
    • Present Status: Absent
  • OSS
    • Description = "Out of School Suspension"
    • Presence Status = "Absent"
    • Code Categories ="Excused" and "OSSSIF"

Recording attendance for distance learning students:

    • If a student is present, then use the DVP code.
    • If a student is absent, then use the DVA code.

Attendance codes must be set up every year at the start of the school year.


Add Attendance Code:

  1. Go to Start Page > School Setup > Attendance Codes.
  2. Click New and enter the following:
    1. Code = "OSS"
    2. Description = "Out of School Suspension"
    3. Presence Status = "Absent"
    4. Code Categories ="Excused" and "OSSSIF"
  3. Select This attendance code is considered in ADA calculations.
  4. Select This attendance code counts towards membership.
  5. Click Submit.

Attendance Tracking and Notification (ATN)

At each school, follow these steps:

  1. Create Code Categories
    1. From School Setup, click Attendance Code Categories.

    2. Verify that a category of Unexcused codes is available.
      OR
      Click New to create an Unexcused attendance code category.

      The name of the category doesn't need to be Unexcused. However, codes marked with this category are treated as unexcused absences.

    3. Click Submit.

  2. Add Attendance Codes
    1. From School Setup, click Attendance Codes. Click each attendance code counted for Unexcused absence and select the Unexcused Attendance Code category.
    2. Click Submit.
  3. Set up Tracking
    1. Create tracking mode 
      1. From School Setup, click Attendance Tracking and Notification, and click Attendance Mode. 

      2. In Attendance Mode Setup, click New and choose the attendance mode setup for this school.

        The type of attendance mode setup can be found under Full-Time Equivalencies in School Setup.

      3. Click Submit.
    2. Create a tracking category
      1. From School Setup, click Attendance Tracking and Notification, and click Unexcused Tracking Setup.
      2. In Unexcused Tracking Setup, click New.
      3. For the Attendance Category, choose the category from Step 1.
      4. For Status, choose Absent and click Submit.

  4. Once all school setups are complete, set up Attendance Tracking and Notification at the District Office
    1. From District Setup, click Attendance Tracking and Notification.

    2. Click New, and then choose Percent.

      The Percent tracking method is a required ATN data element.

    3. Enter your Division's unexcused absence threshold.

      Ensure there is an option for Percent with the value of 50.

    4. Click Submit.

    5. In Update Calculation Year, verify that each school reporting Unexcused Absences is listed and the year is correct. If the year is incorrect, click the Submit button at the bottom to update.


Yearly Unexcused Absences (ATN) Setup
Each year, at the District Office the calculation year needs to be updated to the current year.

  1. From District, click Attendance Tracking, then Notification, and Update Calculation Year.
  2. Click Submit at the bottom of the page to update the year to the current year.
  3. Navigate to System Reports, Refresh Attendance Tracking Data, and run the report to refresh the data.


Refresh the Tracking Data

Around reporting time, the backend data should be refreshed to verify accuracy.

  1. From District Office, click System Reports.

  2. Click on Refresh Attendance Tracking Data.

  3. Click on Submit.


Bell Schedule

Start Page > School Setup > Bell Schedules > Edit Bell Schedule item

  • Day Part must be set to AM or PM.
  • The AM and the PM part of the day should preferably contain at least 180 minutes each.

Years and Terms

Years & Terms > Edit Terms

The Terms setup should include Quarter term for every school.


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