Record Attendance and Participation
Policies regarding student attendance vary. To accommodate this, attendance and participation can be recorded in several ways eSchoolPlus and Teacher Access Center. Some options may not be available to your district, depending on how the district has configured attendance and Teacher Access Center.
Record Class Participation as Positive Attendance in Teacher Access Center
If teachers are required to track how they observed a student's class participation, you may choose to have teachers record this information as an attendance entry.
- Add attendance codes for the participation methods you are tracking.
- To allow teachers to record additional attendance codes besides your default absence and tardy codes, the Attendance Building Configuration must have the ability to enter alternate absence codes enabled. If you limit the available codes that teachers can select, add the attendance codes that track participation.
- To record a teacher entry when teachers select the P checkbox, select a default present code to record in the Attendance Building Configuration.
- Review your attendance view setups to determine if criteria need to be changed. In particular, verify that the criteria will not calculate the student as absent if a student is assigned an attendance code that indicates the student was present.
- Consider state reporting requirements for attendance before you make changes to record positive attendance.
Enter Comments as Part of Attendance Entries
As part of the October 2020 release, a comment field has been added to the TAC Attendance List page. When a teacher enters attendance, they can record a comment describing how they verified the student's attendance. For example, they can add a comment indicating that the student submitted an assignment.
Teachers can record comments when they select the P checkbox on the Attendance List page if the Attendance Building Configuration has a default present code selected. Otherwise, they cannot enter comments for students when they select the P checkbox.
Verify Attendance Where Teacher Entries Contradict Bottomline Attendance
Typically, schools use the office entry as the bottomline attendance as the office verifies absence reasons. As part of the attendance policies schools are implementing related to COVID, teacher entries may be used to record student attendance based on student participation occurring outside of class times. For example, a student may be counted as in attendance if the student completed an assignment by the end of the day even if the student was reported as absent or was not present in the classroom in person or virtually.
As a result, you may need to reconcile student attendance where an absence was reported as an office entry, but the teacher entry indicates the student participated in the class. Use the Office/Teacher Attendance Verification option to review attendance by comparing the bottomline attendance to the teacher's recorded attendance. Then, after attendance information is verified, update a student's attendance if needed to reflect their attendance based on your school's policy.