About Alternate Attendance Accountability

District and state policies may require that students over a certain age or in specific grades not be held accountable for unlawful absences. For example, under laws in some states, students in pre-kindergarten or over the age of 17 are not required to attend school. In such cases, students should never be marked with an absence code that indicates an unlawful absence.

The eSchoolPlus System provides the ability to specify the grades and the minimum age at which students should not be held accountable for being absent or tardy. Your district administrator can define Alternate Attendance Codes for any attendance codes that might be considered unlawful. When attendance is entered for an absence code that has an Accountability Alternate Code and the student meets certain grade or age criteria, the system stores the alternate accountability code in place of the regular attendance code that was entered by the Teacher or office.

Why would you use attendance accountability functionality?

• If your district has an accountability policy that requires that students in certain grades or over a specific age should never be reported as unlawfully absent, for example, Pre-K students or students who are 17 or older.

How does attendance accountability affect users?

• When a user enters an absence or tardy code for a student who meets specified age or grade criteria and an Alternate Attendance Code is stored in the Attendance Codes page, the alternate code will be recorded for the student, overriding the selected default code.
• On attendance entry pages, a red caret ^ displays next to the ID of students who meet either the grade or age requirement for alternate attendance accountability.
• If the Attendance Configuration's Audit Type has been set to Full, the original attendance code selected by the Teacher or Office is saved in an audit table. If the Audit Type has been set to Partial, only the alternate code is saved, in which case, no audit record is created.

How do you set up attendance accountability functionality?

1. On the District Definition page (Administration > General Setup > District > District), enter values in the Attendance Accountability section's Minimum Age and Grade Exceptions fields, as needed.
2. On the Attendance Codes page (Administration > Attendance > Setup > Attendance Codes > select a code), assign an Alternate Attendance Code. This should be done for all codes where alternate accountability applies.
3. On the Attendance Building Configuration page (Administration > Attendance Setup > Setup > Attendance Building Configuration), select the default absence and tardy codes to enter when a user checks the A and T boxes while entering attendance. These codes must have Alternate Attendance Codes specified so that the system can automatically apply an alternate code when needed.
4. In the configuration's Audit Type field, select one of the following:
   Full - to save the original code selected by the Teacher/Office in an audit table.
   Partial - to save only the alternate code (no audit record is created).