049 – Student Attendance

Introduction

The 049 extract includes a record for each student absence (both excused and unexcused) during the current school year. A record is also created when attendance that was previously sent as an absence is changed to a present. The extract takes into account whether the student was transported, e.g. rode the bus, on the day of the absence. A different attendance type is extracted if the student was marked absent but still transported.

The Attendance Type is determined as follows:

• A – Excused absence
• U – Unexcused absence
• T – Excused absence, but present for transportation
• X – Unexcused absence, but present for transportation
• P – Present (Previously Marked Absent)
• D – Distance Learning / Virtual Classrooms (deprecated - no longer reported)
• H – Code is Present and mapped to the Homebound category
• I – Code is Absent and mapped to the Homebound category
• N – Code is Present and mapped to the (DLV) Distance Learning - Virtual Classrooms category
• Y – Code is mapped to both the Excused and Quarantine or Self-Isolation categories  
• Z – Code is mapped to both the Unexcused and Quarantine or Self-Isolation categories

Note: It is recommended to schedule the nightly process for attendance (Special functions - Interfaces to Other Systems - TN EIS - Maintenance - Scheduled Nightly Process) to update data for the extract.

Attendance and Transportation Calculation

There are two methods to determine whether the student was absent and/or transported on the date of their absence. The first method allows the extract to use a calculation to determine the value (separate calculations are used for Daily and Meeting attendance). The third method allows you to "override" the transportation calculation using attendance settings.

Daily Attendance

• The student is considered absent if they are assigned an attendance code with a presence status of "Absent" for their daily attendance period.
• The student is determined to be excused or unexcused based on whether the "Excused" or "Unexcused" attendance code category is assigned to their attendance code.
• The student is considered present for transportation if they are marked as excused or unexcused and have both a transportation record and greater than zero minutes present on the date of the absence. Transportation records are created via Start Page > Student > Transportation.

Meeting Attendance

• The student is considered absent if they are assigned an attendance code with a presence status of "Absent" for more than fifty percent of the day. For example, if there are seven periods in the day, the student must be absent for at least four periods. If there are eight periods, the student must be absent for at least five periods.
• Each attendance record is determined to be excused or unexcused based on whether the "Excused" or "Unexcused" attendance code category is assigned to the attendance code. The student's excused/unexcused value for the day is determined by how many absences are excused versus unexcused; whichever amount is greater is reported. If the student is assigned an equal number of excused and unexcused absences, then the student is marked as excused.
• The student is considered present for transportation if they have a transportation record on the date of the absence and they are present for the first and/or last period of the day. Transportation records are created via Start Page > Student > Transportation.

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Transportation Override

To avoid using the derived attendance methods to determine presence status for transportation values, you can create an Attendance Code Category with the name "Transport" and assign that category to the appropriate attendance codes. An appropriate attendance code will be a code that is marked with the excused or unexcused category as well as the transportation category. These attendance codes should not be used for students that do not receive bus transportation. If the student's absence attendance code for the day is associated with the Transport category and the Excused or Unexcused category, then the extract automatically considers the student to be present for transportation. See School Setup for more information on how to set up the attendance code category at the school level.

Note: There should be no attendance code that has just the Transport attendance code category. The attendance code must also be marked as Excused or Unexcused to be used for transportation. Existing attendance codes for students that do not receive transportation should remain unchanged.

Transportation records must still be created and reported for students via Start Page > Student > Transportation. The benefit of overriding attendance is that students do not need to be present for any period of the day in order to be considered present for transportation. This means that for daily attendance, no time-in/time-out attendance is required and for period attendance, the student can be marked absent in both the first and last period of the day (with the understanding that the student was still present long enough to require transportation).

Note: It is recommended that you use the override only if the derived values using attendance records do not meet the needs of the district. The override values are more difficult to validate in an audit situation because the attendance records cannot be used for reference as the do not reflect actual time present.

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Attendance Processing

Attendance processing occurs each night during the PowerSchool nightly process (the "049 create extract - extract all" bypasses the nightly process but should only be used for initial submission). Alternatively, you can process attendance at any time using the Special Function "Process 049 Attendance Queue Data Now (Outside of Nightly Process)". Both processes compare new attendance data in the AttendanceQueue table with data stored in StateEventQueue table to determine if attendance has changed. New or changed attendance data is transferred to the StateEventQueue table from the AttendanceQueue table. Data is then available in the StateEventQueue table to be extracted in the next 049 Student Attendance extract.

Note: It is necessary to set the TN_Extract_AttendanceMethod preference to Nightly. This setup should be completed while your district is in implementation. Otherwise, contact PowerSchool Technical Support.

To manually process extract attendance:

1. On the Start page, click Special Functions. The Special Functions page appears.
2. Click Interfaces to other systems. The Interfaces to Other Systems page appears.
3. Click TennesseeEducation InformationSystem(EIS). The Tennessee Education Information System (EIS) page appears.
4. Click the Extract tab.
5. Click Process 049 Attendance Queue Data Now (Outside of Nightly Process).

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StateEventQueue Table

Data for the 049 student attendance records is stored in the StateEventQueue table. The fields updated in this table include:

• ID - Sequence number (internal)
• StudentID - Current StudentID
• SchoolID - Current SchoolID
• EventDate - Current Date
• EventTime - Current Time
• EventData – Data for the 049 Extract Record
• Extract_LayoutRecordID - "049"

Report Input

For help with navigation and extract generation, see Create Selected Student Related Extract File.

Note: If you select the "Extract ALL DATABASE RECORDS For The Items(s) Checked Above," checkbox, records are extracted for the current school only (not district-wide). This exception applies only to the 049 Student Attendance extract.

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Extract Output

Each of the fields displayed in the output of the report are described below. See Understanding the Report Output Table for a definition of each column in the table.

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