Attendance- Chronic Absentieeism notification

[Becca]

Just wanting to seek suggestions on how to deal with chronic absenteeism notification. We have a small population of students so I need something simple. 

Trying to avoid printing out weekly reports but I would like to find a way for powerschool  to flag a student who has been absent for so many days and to send an email to the parent.

Also, the principals are looking for way to auto generate attendance letters for parents with students that have been absent for so many days. We are trying to use the 3 attendance status color code letters which I can upload. 1. Green for students that have missed less that 5% of the school days.

2. Yellow status for students that have missed between 5% and 10% of the school year thus prompting a warning

3. Red status  for students who are chronically absent from school. 

Has anyone used the attendance tracking and notification feature?

All in all, I would like to hear some suggestions on how you guys are addressing attendance issues.

Thank you in Advance

Becca Moore

Delta Greely School District

907-895-4657 xt 29

[Kyle Schneider]

Becca,

I don’t have a great answer for you, but I’ll tell you what we do and why.

First, what we don’t do - we don’t send out automated emails, and we rarely use form letters. We’ve simply found them ineffective. Similarly, we have an automated system for calling the parents of students who are absent after 1st period, we’ll be dropping it this year based upon community and principal feedback. You may have a difference experience since your communities are a little different than ours.

We use a few different methods for identifying these students:

• Principals and secretaries get an emailed list at the end of the day of everyone who had attendance marked for them. That allows them to be aware of who is/was not there.

• We use the Chronic Absent Alert off of PowerSource to get an icon on student page for students who miss 10% or more. https://support.powerschool.com/exchange/view.action?download.id=724

• The AKPSUG plugin includes a Chronic Absenteeism report that breaks the school population down by: Regular attendance (>95%), At-Risk students (90-95%), Chronically Absent (80-90%), and severely chronically absent (80% or less). http://www.akpsug.org/aste-2015

• We’ve also setup the At-Risk dashboard and the Consecutive Attendance dashboard.

--
Kyle Schneider
Student Support Specialist
Southwest Region School District
PO Box 90
Dillingham, AK 99576
Phone: 907 842 8221
Fax: 907 842 5428

Skype: call or chat
kschn...@swrsd.org

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[Becca Moore]

Thank you  Kyle. I appreciate the information.  We are just brainstorming and open to suggestions. Very interesting point that you guys are staying away from automated emails. 

Becca Moore
Records Management
907-895-4657 ext 29

Sent from my mobile phone
   

[Chasina Worman]

Beca,

Great question.

I tried to use the attendance tracking and it just didn't work. We ended up going to Phoenix Learning and they helped us set up an automated system that auto-generates letters at 5, 9, 15 & 20 absences.  When these letters are generated it is marked in a custom field in PowerSchool so that we know a letter has been sent out.  This system has worked well for us, but could be improved upon.

There is a Chronic Absent alert available in PowerSource you may want to look at:

https://support.powerschool.com/exchange/view.action?download.id=724&fromSearchResults=true

Computer Logic Solutions has a slick attendance tracker, but it comes with a high price tag if I remember correctly:

http://computerlogicgroup.com/attendance-tracker-for_powerschool/

Kyle Schneider kyle.sc...@gsded.com at GSD also may have some reports and customizations that he has built that may help? 

In short, while you think this would be a basic built-in feature, it is not.

I would suggest that you monitor and use the attendance screen and rebuilt consecutive absences, but they do not solve your current request. 

Also, there is the "At Risk" Dashboard that was added last year that looks at grades and attendance

Chasina Worman

Note: We have moved offices!  Come visit us downstairs in CO in the side conference room. 

Information Specialist
KGBSD Central Office 
Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District

Office: (907) 247-2139
Cell: (907) 254-3323