SIS 2000+ Attendance

Section 4, Attendance Class Entry

The Attendance Class Entry program offers a quick method for the classroom teacher to bring up his or her class roster and take attendance for the day/period. An optional feature will allow food orders to be counted for the day and posted to the Food Services tables, if applicable. When the roster is brought up it, defaults to the teacher (from the login screen) and the current period (from the bell schedule).
 

Attendance codes will be automatically posted into the Attendance Class Entry tables from several other applications within the Attendance module: Rapid Entry (Sec. 2) and Phone Log (Sec. 3). Also, the Behavior History application will post "suspended" attendance codes to this application whenever certain behavior penalties are assigned to students. (See Behavior, Sec. 4, "Add A Penalty" for more details.)

To use Attendance Class Entry, complete the following steps (described in detail below):

1. Log into SIS 2000+.
2. Launch Class Entry.
3. Set Parameters.
4. Enter Attendance Codes
5. Save
6. Review Completed Class Roster
7. Edit Records (Make Corrections)
8. Exit

Step 1. Login

The opening screen of the Class Entry program defaults to the teacher that is logged on. If the user is a teacher entering their own attendance data, proceed to Step 2.

If class attendance is to be recorded by an attendance clerk or an administrator other than the teacher, proceed as follows:

1. Choose the District Office at the login screen (see Login).
2. From the SIS 2000+ Main menu, change to the target school using the Switch School option from the File menu.
3. Choose the attendance track to edit. The view will revert to the Main Menu.
4. Open the Attendance module.
5. From the Attendance Menu, open the Attendance Class Entry program.
6. Select the teacher from the field in the upper left of the Class Entry screen.
7. Proceed with Step 2.

Step 2. Open the Attendance Class Entry Program

From the SIS 2000+ Main Menu, click on the Attendance icon button to open the Attendance Menu. From the Attendance Menu, click on the Class Entry icon button.


Fig. 1 - read-only mode

Screen Layout - The opening screen of the Attendance Class Roster program is in the read-only mode (Fig. 1).

Banner area - Four fields in the upper left corner of the program screen:
• Track - Current attendance track
• Teacher - The teacher selected is displayed. If the user is logged on to the District Office or as a System Administrator, a list of all teachers in the target attendance track will be available for selection.
• Date - Today's date is displayed immediately below the Teacher field. This date may be changed in the edit mode.
• Day - Day of the week is auto calculated and displayed to the right of the Date field.

Schedule Roster - The schedule of the selected track/teacher/date is listed in the roster on the left side of the screen. Each period/class is an entry in the list.

• Per(iod) - The period code, as defined for the track in the Track Editor program.
• Course Description - The name of the course
• Sec # - Section number
• Attend.(ance) Taken - "N"(No) or "Y"(Yes)  indicates whether attendance has been taken for this period on this date.

Available Attendance Codes - A list of Attendance Codes used in the district database is in the middle area of the program screen. Attendance codes are defined in the Table Editor program during the configuration of SIS 2000+. Click on the Show All Codes button at the bottom of the list to view the full list. Deselect the button to show only the minimum codes necessary for the user that is logged on (default mode). The codes that are visible in either mode depend on the permissions of the user that is logged on. (See Permissions)

Class Roster - When a course is selected (highlighted) in the schedule roster, a list of all the students in the selected course appears in the class roster on the right side. Use the scroll bars, if necessary, to view all students in the class. Students who are enrolled in the class as teaching assistants will appear at the bottom of the roster with a (TA) flag preceding their name (Fig. 2).


Fig. 2

Attendance for each student is marked in the Code column. In the example above, the Code fields in the class roster default to "present" status in a negative attendance track, normally indicated by a small decimal place holder in the lower left of each field. When logged on to a positive attendance track, where students are considered absent unless marked present, the place holder will normally be an alpha character such as "A". The place holder characters "absent" and "present" are defined in the Attendance Codes table via the Table Editor program.

A count of the total enrollment for the class is displayed in the Class Tally field at the bottom of the roster.

A picture of the student (Fig. 3), if available, may be viewed by activating the edit mode and clicking on the camera icon button in the Photo column. Student pictures are imported via the Student Editor program.

camera icon button


Fig. 3

Step 3. Set Parameters

• Select a track - If the logged on site has more than one track, select a target track from the drop-down list. If the site has only one track, that track will be selected by default.
• Select a teacher - If the user is logged on to the District Office as an attendance clerk or other type of administrator, a list of teachers in the target attendance track will be available in the Teacher field. If the user is logged on as a teacher, the Teacher field will default to that teacher's name and no other selection will be available.
• Activate the edit mode - Click on the Edit command button.
• Select a date - Use the drop-down calendar to locate and select the date. The date field will default to today's date.

Step 4. Enter Attendance Codes

Attendance is defined in the Track Editor program as either negative attendance or positive attendance. In a negative attendance track, all students are considered present unless marked absent or tardy. In a positive attendance track, all students are considered absent unless marked present.

The samples that follow will be examples of the commonly used negative attendance track. In these screens, all students are considered present by default, unless marked otherwise. A small decimal in the lower left corner of the Code field is a place holder code that signifies "present". This symbol, as well as all codes and colors used for codes, have been user-defined in the Table Editor program.

Example 1. All students present.
If all students are present and accounted for, put a check in the Attendance Taken field (Fig. 7). No further action needs to be taken for this class.


Fig. 7

Skip to Step 5 saving the data and continue with attendance for other classes.

Example 2. Marking Absences, Tardies, Etc.
Click on the desired attendance code in the list until a black dot is entered in its radio button (Fig. 8). Note that teachers may not see all available attendance codes.

Fig. 8 - "Absent" selected

Click on a student in the roster to record the selected attendance code -- the entry will be highlighted in green. The attendance code will be copied as a symbol or letter to the Code field to the right of the student's name (Fig. 9).

Repeat this process for any other student who is to receive the same attendance code. A student's name that has received an attendance code will turn to the matching color of the code as it appears in the available attendance code list when the focus is moved to another student name.

The Attendance Taken field will automatically be checked in a class where any attendance codes have been entered, even if the attendance has not been completed for all students (Fig. 9).


Fig. 9

Select another attendance code, if required, and apply the code to targeted students in the class roster in the same manner as above. Repeat this process until all attendance has been recorded (Fig. 10). Use the scroll bars, if necessary, to view all students in the class -and/or- maximize the screen size.


Fig. 10 - various attendance codes entered

Click on the Done command button to exit the edit mode without marking attendance.

Step 5. Save Attendance

All attendance entries at this stage in the procedure are temporarily held in memory. Click on the Save command button to post attendance to the database and revert to the read-only mode, or Undo to cancel all entries.

Step 6. View completed class roster

A period/class that has had attendance codes saved is indicated by a "Y" (Yes) in the Attend. Taken column in the schedule roster (Fig. 11) and also by a check mark in the Attendance Taken check box (Fig. 9) at the top of the available attendance codes list.


Fig. 11

Fig. 12

The class roster on the right will show the attendance codes posted for each student (Fig. 12). Attendance codes can be edited later, if necessary (see Step 7).

Step 7. Edit Attendance Records (optional, if needed)

Saved attendance codes can be changed as follows:
• Select a track as explained above in Step 3.
• Select teacher as explained above in Step 3.
• Activate the edit mode as explained above in Step 3.
• Select date - as explained above in Step 3.
• Select period/class - Select the period/class to be edited in the schedule roster on the left by clicking on the entry until it is highlighted in gray (Fig. 6). As each period/class is selected, the students in that class will be listed in the class roster on the right.
• Select a new attendance code - Put a check mark in the radio button of the attendance code that will be used to overwrite a student's existing code.
• Select student to edit, repeat - In the class roster on the right, select the student name to be edited by clicking on the entry until it is highlighted in green. The new attendance code will overwrite the old code. Repeat Step 7 for each student to edit in the roster.
• Save - Click on the Save command button to post the modified data, or Undo to cancel.
• Repeat - Repeat above steps for editing other classes

Step 8. Exit the edit mode

Click on the Done command button to exit the edit mode.