Attendance Tracking and

Notification in

PowerSchoolKeith Wright (Ramona Unified School District)

Todd Barker (Lennox School District)

10/19/2012

Originally presented by Sarkis Gharibian to the SoCal PS Users Group meeting, January 20th, 2012

Purpose

Efficiently notify parents of chronic absents/truants

To automate the creation of notification letters in PowerSchool when students hit specific triggers or thresholds (e.g. 3, 6, or 9 combined unexcused absences and or truancies)

Enable the district to easily track the notification status of students

Sample SARB Process

The first truancy letter is triggered by any combinations of 3 unexcused absences and or 30+minute tardies and results in a student being classified as a truant and being reported to the district attendance administrator.  Letter 1 sent by mail with a copy forwarded to the District Attorney.

The second truancy letter is triggered by any combinations of 6 unexcused absences and or 30+ minute tardies and results in a student being reported as truant to the district attendance administrator.  Letter 2 sent by mail.  School site will attempt to contact parent/guardian to schedule meeting with school administration to review truancy problem to avoid further measures.

The third truancy letter is triggered by any combinations of 9 unexcused absences and or 30+ minute tardies and requires that the student be classified as habitual truant and informs them they are subject to summons to appear at the Student Attendance Review Board (SARB).

Initial Setup

Carefully read the PS7x_atn_user_guide

Utilize the Powerschool help button on each configuration page

Utilize the ATN Cheat Sheet for simplified guidance

Verify attendance codes and categories conform to ATN requirements

It may require you to modify your existing attendance codes

Create 3 separate letters in ReportWorks or as Object Reports

School Setup:

Attendance Tracking Modes

Meeting Period to Day, Meeting Time To Day, Daily Code To Day, etc.

Attendance Tracking Categories (e.g. Illness and Unexcused)

Attendance Code Categories (associate each with a single tracking category).

District Setup:

Set up your Tracking Methods

Percent is requiredTardy Day is recommendedPeriod/Interval is recommended

Be sure to update your calculation year at the start of each year

Thresholds or “triggers”

Trigger 1 – any combination of THREE unexcused absences or truancies (defined as a tardy > 30 minutes).

Trigger 2 – any combination of SIX Unexcused absences or Truancies

Trigger 3 – any combination of NINE Unexcused absences or Truancies

Note: You can customize the triggers to only include absences or to different numbers (e.g. 5 unexcused absences per semester)

Attendance Code Rules:

• Must be associated with the correct Attendance Code Category in order to track attendance.

• Absent Codes must have an Absent presence status (Unexcused and Illness).

• Tardy codes must have a Present presence status (Tardies).

Three new fields!

UEAT_Absent_Dates (e.g. 9/15/2012, 10/5/2012)

UEAT_Trady_Dates* (e.g. 1/17/2013)

UEAT_Date_Reached (e.g. 1/17/2013)

*(that’s supposed to be TARDY, but Pearson actually spelled it TRADY – no joke!)

These new fields only become active in your system AFTER you run the FIRST EXTRACT.

In short:

Attendance codes must be associated with the appropriate attendance code category.

Attendance code categories must be set up to identify types of attendance.

Separate attendance code categories must be set up for unexcused tardies and unexcused absences.

Attendance code categories must be associated with attendance tracking categories.

Weekly Process

First, log in at the site level and run “Refresh Premier Attendance Views”

Second, log in at DISTRICT level and:

Run System Report – “Refresh Attendance Tracking Data” (Only once per week, right before you run extract report and letters)

This updates the data in the [UnexcusedHistorical] and [UnexcusedNotify] tables.

School Level

Log back in to SCHOOL level

Then run the “Truancy and Attendance Letters (View Only) report. Verify that everything is o.k.

If all is good with the report, save the students as a stored selection.

Weekly Process (Cont.)

Run the “Truancy and Attendance Letters (EXTRACT)

Immediately select the students identified and print appropriate letter (1, 2, or 3)

2 Tables Store ATN Data:

[UnexcusedHistorial]

[UnexcusedNotify]

Note: Attendance tracking and notification data is collected using a different process than basic PowerSchool attendance.

The ATN Process Does Not:

Store data in the ATTENDANCE table

Alter existing attendance reports in any way

Thanks!

The majority of the this presentation was created by Sarkis Gharibian sgharibian@csmci.com

For more information about this appended presentation, please contact Keith Wright (kwright@ramonausd.net) or Todd Barker (barket12000@gmail.com)