1. ATTENDANCE Assistant Principal Admin Conference 2017-2018 presented by Student Services

2. Why ATTENDANCE?
Accurate records are needed for state reporting (PEIMS)
State funding for general education and special populations (special ed, LEP, CTE, GT) are determined by that PEIMS reporting

3. ATTENDANCE impacts LEARNING!
But – most important:
ATTENDANCE impacts LEARNING!
and thus test scores and accountability.

4. Last Year in Aldine the overall attendance rate was 94.5%

5. This means: In high school almost 1 out of 3 students misses at least a day every two weeks. In middle school, it is more than 1 out of 7.

6. And in elementary and intermediate schools, at least 2 students in every classroom are chronically absent. In EC/PK, it is close to 5.

7. So what have we learned about test scores?
Elementary Schools
Enrolled 150 days or more
Attendance Issues = Chronic < 90%

8. Middle Schools

9. High Schools

10. Keys to Improving Attendance:
Daily monitoring using eSchool reports.
More home contact that auto-dialing calls.
Getting to the root cause of why students are absent and working to solve those issues.
Helping students get caught up when absent.

11. Making school the place students want to be:
where they are treated with respect
– where they feel valued, safe and secure
– where they know they are missed if not there
– where they feel success
– where they have events to look forward to (organizations and clubs / a science experiment / sports).

12. Starting the year off right:
At a building staff meeting before school starts, the principal or an assistant principal needs to discuss the importance of attendance, attendance record keeping, Magic Moment (more later on that), and processes for the first day of school. The attendance clerk can help with the discussion of processes.

13. Starting the year off right:
EC/PK - Elementary Schools – recommended process:
As students arrive, they are greeted and directed to their new classroom.
This can continue until attendance time.
After attendance time, students arriving need to be taken to the attendance office.

14. The students need to sign-in (with time)
If they have not been no-showed (more later), their enrollment date in eSchool needs to be changed to Tuesday.
If they have been no-showed, they need to be re-activated in eSchool with an enrollment date of Tuesday.
The scheduling team needs to reschedule the student.
And, of course, the student is taken to class.

15. What happens if you don’t keep it important?
Meanwhile
MAGIC MOMENT
What is it?
Who needs to know?
Why is it important?
What happens if you don’t keep it important?

16. Magic Moment
This is the most important concept of TEA attendance. EVERYONE in your building must be able to tell an auditor when your magic moment is.
In EC/PK and Elementary Schools it is standardized to 9:30

17. More on Magic Moment
If two students pass at the door – one coming in and one leaving, one is absent and one is present.
Students not in class but under the supervision of school personnel are present (in the office, clinic, etc.) – BUT DOCUMENTATION IS NECESSARY if teacher initially marks the student absent.

18. QUIZ TIME!! What is Magic Moment:
A When the Cookie Monster delivers cookies to students with perfect attendance.
B A window for taking state attendance.
C 9:30 - when state attendance is taken.

19. So. . . It is MAGIC MOMENT on 8/21 – what happens now?
Teachers will have a roll sheet for their homeroom.
They will “1-in”students in the 8/21 column who are present in their class – adding missing names at the bottom and “1-ing” them in.
They will count up the 1s.

20. A professional staff member will visit every homeroom to collect the roll sheets:
The teacher will have a total number of students at the bottom.
The professional person will count the students in the room to confirm the accuracy of this number.
If the two are not the same, the teacher and professional staff member will make corrections.

21. The roll sheets and counts go to the attendance office.
Counts are entered on a spreadsheet and totaled.
This count is ed to Student Services by 1:00 (and until the campus is ‘balanced’ a daily count is ed).
Great idea to check this before ing – comparing to the day before, etc.

22. Students who are not “1’d-in”, are no-showed.
It is best if any students have been moved room to room that a list be kept so you don’t accidently no-show students who were moved.
Also checking first for names written at the bottom of sheets can help avoid no-showing present students.

23. The goal is to no-show everyone not in attendance on day 1 – and then confirm the count in the computer matches the count on the teacher roll sheets.
If it does – you are balanced! If not, more on that later.

24. YOU DO NOT NEED TO NO-SHOW BEFORE MAILING YOUR COUNT.
It is a count of students and really has nothing to do with the computer enrollment.

25. It’s been a long day but. . . If you do not complete this before going home, Tuesday will not run as smoothly as it could. Work efficiently and effectively to get through this all on day 1. Go home knowing Tuesday will be easier.

26. TUESDAY forward –
COUNT IS ENROLLMENT:
Present students +
Absent students who have been in attendance on a prior day and have not withdrawn.

27. HINTS for making this work smoothly:

28. Plan ahead
Build a team
– Meet as a group to go over your plan
Assign extra clerical staff to the Attendance Office
Determine who will collect roll sheets from what wings, etc.

29. Check and double check your list of homerooms
Check and double check your list of homerooms. Don’t forget your special ed rooms.
You might organize it by room number.
Cut up a copy of it for the ‘counters’ to each have their rooms to write the numbers on – easier transfer. (Get fancy and use Google Sheets!).

30. You survived the first day – or week! Now what?
ADA
Attendance

31. When is a student absent but not absent?
Medical appointment – but attends school during the same day;
Religious holiday – strict interpretation.

32. ALL REQUIRE DOCUMENTATION FOR AUDIT
There are a few more – playing TAPS at a military funeral, etc. Your attendance clerk has a list.
ALL REQUIRE DOCUMENTATION FOR AUDIT

33. Excused vs Unexcused – not Student Services’ call – to the state, absent is absent.
“Do I have to count him absent?” Yes . . because of funding.
Students ‘going on vacation’ remain enrolled.

34. TEACHERS WHO DON’T TAKE ATTENDANCE
Daily Routine
Biggest complaint of attendance clerks:
TEACHERS WHO DON’T TAKE ATTENDANCE
Please help your clerk; she does not feel empowered to change the behavior of teachers.

35. (To both improve it and keep better records.)
You can help through positive and if necessary negative actions. If you make attendance important, your teachers will make attendance important.
(To both improve it and keep better records.)

36. What your attendance staff is busy doing:
After Magic Moment, runs Missing Submission report to confirm all teachers have taken attendance – also needs routine to gather/post attendance for substitutes, teachers without computers, etc.
. . .and repeats until all teachers have taken attendance – contacts those who haven’t, etc. YOU CAN HELP HERE!!

37. Continually updates the absence file with known students not in class at Magic Moment – SAC, SUP, etc. YOU CAN HELP HERE!! Enter discipline as it happens!
Changes absence code on known absences from parent notes, etc.
Maintains documentation for attendance officers.

38. Call homes – if your clerk is assigned to do this. YOU CAN HELP HERE
Call homes – if your clerk is assigned to do this. YOU CAN HELP HERE! Think a lot about this one – value of phone dialer, who is best to make contact, approach of contact, home visits
Prints Daily Attendance Report – verify it against students who have signed in/out.

39. Fills in percent of attendance spreadsheet, if applicable.
Reprints “final” Daily Attendance Report for documentation.
Runs the Audit Trail Summary report. NEW THIS YEAR! It shows ‘bottom line attendance.’ If the office removes an absence we need documentation. (Not new this year.)

40. Collects/organizes documentation for absences changed from what the teacher posted (not notes for the reason of an absence). Examples: teacher marked student absent -student returns with a doctor’s note; teacher marked student absent -student is in the clinic. Teacher marked the student absent - the student is in SAC/ISS.

41. Weekly Routine
Prints Elementary Teacher Attendance Verification report.
Distributes to teachers to verify and sign; make necessary corrections.
Scans to Student Services:
Daily Absence List
Audit Trail Summary
Documentation
Teacher Attendance Verification report– no white-out/red ink.

42. Reports Student Services Sends to You
Each 3 week cycle we send the building principal an attendance report to sign. The state realizes we may make changes after this date, but TEA wants proof that we monitor as we go. At the end of the year, we send a final report for each cycle to be signed by the principal. Both sets are stored for audit purposes.

43. How to View Attendance in eSchool
Type year in Quick Search and go to Year View.
This shows a color coded page – hover over a date for more details.

45. You can print this as a list using the Additional Options icon:

46. And more about Chronically Absent Students
There is a report called Absence Rate Report. It counts days of enrollment, days absent (state attendance) and calculates percent.

47. A similar report is Chronic Absenteeism but it only looks at students enrolled 83% of the year – using the state definition of who would count before TEA dropped this from accountability.

48. We need to help our chronically absent improve. but
We need to help our chronically absent improve but if students stop coming and we’ve gone through the steps with the attendance officers, etc, we need to withdraw the students. Action should be taken after a few days of absences with no reason – but a student who is gone should never be absent more than 10 days.

49. Switching topics – what does this mean?
75,600
Hint: what was 177

50. It is the number of minutes required in a school year
It is the number of minutes required in a school year. Why did this happen? What does this mean for Aldine?

51. One last thing: Balancing Head Counts to eSchool
Required by TEA twice a year at the beginning of each semester (1st and 3rd cycles)
Needs to be a joint effort between administration, registrars and ADA clerks. Schedule changes can really confuse things – so EVERYONE needs to know what is going on. FREEZE THE BUILDING.

52. Hand count rooms by “Heads” using the Class Roll Sheets report or a form – absent students COUNT! We need ENROLLMENT! Use professional staff to go room-to-room – take teacher’s roster and verify differences.
Transfer counts to Teacher Building Count spreadsheet and total – by grade at elementary schools.

53. In eSchool: process Headcount Statistics Report and balance against the Teacher Building Count spreadsheet. Work until they do!
Run the Enrollment Verification Report and compare the Teachers Totals page to the Teacher Building count spreadsheet. Then check room by room for equal counts – make corrections and continue until balanced.

54. Send documentation to Student Services by the end of the 5th week of each semester.
Student Services offers a workshop to balance if time is getting short. We will also assist along the way.

55. Documentation in Aldine ISD Support Documents
In eSchool > My eSchool Plus > All > Links > Aldine ISD Support Documents
Everything we hand out at meetings, PEIMS information, state documents, and directions/helpful information is posted here.

56. Student Attendance Accounting Handbook
TEA’s “rule book” [along with the Texas Education Data Standards (TEDS)] – great reference for enrollment and attendance (plus other areas like LEP, GT, CTE, Special Ed, etc).

57. Questions and Discussion