attendance weekly

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Weekly Attendance

General Description

The Weekly Attendance screen can be used to record an entire weeks worth of attendance for a class. You can save the attendance and send the students and their parents automatic emails when specific attendance events occur by clicking the Send Email button.

When you first open the the Weekly Attendance screen, it shows you a list of all the active students in your currently active class. Use the Meeting Days screen to define the days of the week your class meets.

If no attendance has been recorded for the week you are viewing, a message saying ** Not recorded yet is shown to indicate that you have not clicked the save button. In addition, each student is initially given the default attendance code. Most teachers have their default attendance code set to "Present". However, you can use the Attendance Definitions screen to make any code the default code and even create your own codes.

Updating attendance

There are two methods for updating the attendance before clicking the save button or Send Email button. The second method is generally faster to use.

Use your mouse to choose the appropriate attendance code from the drop-down list.
Once you have used your mouse to highlight an attendance code, type the code. For example, type "P" for present. You can then press your "Tab" key to quickly move to the next date and type another code. If you press and hold your "Tab" key, the cursor will move from date to date very quickly.

When you are done making changes, click the save button or Send Email button to record your changes.

Working with other weeks

By default the current week is shown. However, you can easily work on other weeks by clicking on the Previous Week or Next Week links. The links you use to switch weeks are to the left and right of the date. Use the Meeting Days screen to define the days of the week your class meets.

When you go to a different week, the screen refreshes and shows a list of all the active students in your chosen class that are active during the week you are currently viewing. The Enrollment Date and Drop Date fields in the Student screen are used to determine if a student is active as of the date you are viewing. The Start Date and End Date fields in the Class screen are used to determine if a class is active during the week you are viewing.

Sending Automatic Emails

When you click the "Send Email" button, the data on the screen is saved and automatic email notices are sent to students and parents for those attendance events you have indicated result in an email notification. You can indicate which attendance events should result in an automatic email by using the Attendance Definitions screen.

When you click the "Send Email" button and emails are sent, an informational message telling you how many emails were sent is displayed above the date. After emails for a student on a day are sent, no further emails will be sent for that student on that day. Thus, you can make additional changes to the weekly attendance and click the "Send Email" button again without worrying that duplicate emails will be sent.

Reasons why emails do not get sent

There are no email addresses assigned to the student records. Use the the Student screen to assign email addresses for the students and their parents.
Emails have already been sent for every attendance event that is supposed to result in an email.
The students did not have attendance events that should result in automatic emails. For example, the students were "Present". Use the Attendance Definitions screen to indicate which attendance events should result in an automatic email.

What a typical automatic email looks like

Subject: Attendance in (your class name)

This automatic email was sent to inform you of the following attendance event:

Attendance Event: (Description)
Student Name: (Students name)
Date: (Date event occurred)

Sincerely,

(your name)

Deleting attendance

Once you have displayed the correct week, click the "Delete" button to delete the attendance recorded for that day from the system. If you do not see a "Delete" button, it is because there is no attendance that has been recorded for the week you are viewing.