Re: [schooltool] Day Absence vs. Period Absence

[Tim Kamps]

Actually, in the USA, most schools (grades 6 and up) have to report attendance to the MINUTE, which means taking attendance EVERY hour of the day. Elementary schools (KDG-5th grade) often take attendance twice a day at a minimum. Funding for public schools is dependent on student count, so having accurate attendance is critical to funding. This is so important to them that the SIS MUST be able to calculate attendance to the minute or the software would not be considered. Tim On Oct 24, 2005, at 12:47 AM, Tom Hoffman wrote: Spurred by the recent discussion of attendance, which is very important and helpful, despite my pissy tone, I have come up with one key concept that I think was missing from the previous version of attendance functionality done by POV what seems like a very long time ago. In US primary and secondary schools (NOT post-secondary) you generally have a "homeroom" period, when attendance is taken at the beginning of the day and general announcements are made.  This may be combined with a regular class section or in may be, in effect, a short section (10 - 15 minutes) with no educational content. If you aren't in homeroom, you're marked absent for the day.  If you come in late, you check in with the office and are marked tardy for the day.  A daily bulletin comes out later in the morning with a printed listing of the absent students, so teachers can see if a student missing from their section is absent for the day or just cutting their class. Students missing days due to absence need to bring in written excuses subsequently.  In theory, an excused or unexcused absence for the day translates to an excused or unexcused absences for each of the individual periods in the day. So we'll need to designate a homeroom period in SchoolTool, and we'll need to model both day and period absences.  I think we only had period absences before.  I'm sure there are some variations on this in the US, but I think the basic outlines are pretty consistent.  What do they do in European primary schools?  I bet many European secondary schools are more like colleges and only keep track of if you show up for individual classes. --Tom _______________________________________________ Schooltool mailing list Schooltool@schooltool.org http://lists.schooltool.org/mailman/listinfo/schooltool ------------ Tim Kamps Dir. of Technology Holland Christian Schools 956 Ottawa Ave. Holland, MI 49423 616-820-2805 http://www.hollandchristian.org/ MACUL Board Member http://www.macul.org/

_______________________________________________
Schooltool mailing list
Schooltool@schooltool.org
http://lists.schooltool.org/mailman/listinfo/schooltool