Daily Time Exclusion Setup

To get started, configure the following setup items in the order by which they appear:

Specify Attendance Preferences

To utilize Daily Time Exclusion, you must use the daily method of recording attendance. Meeting attendance may also be used in conjunction with daily attendance. Using both methods is especially helpful for those schools with block schedules in which students move between classes and each teacher must record absences and tardies. Through attendance preferences, schools can define whether lunch periods and passing time are included in or excluded from the calculated Average Daily Attendance minutes.

The following example schedule represents an elementary, closed campus school:

In this example, lunch is scheduled as a separate period, as are the morning and afternoon periods. Courses are set up to represent morning, lunch, and afternoon classes. Sections for these courses are scheduled, and students are enrolled in these sections. When the teacher takes attendance during the morning period, PowerSchool evaluates each student's schedule and calculates attendance as:

Note that the lunch period is not included in the total attendance minutes.

Set the attendance preferences to exclude lunch periods and passing time so that PowerSchool excludes these times when attendance is recorded. The calculation determines passing time by investigating the student's schedule to find the periods in which the student is scheduled. PowerSchool then investigates the bell schedule to determine whether any passing time between the periods exists. 

1. Navigate to the Attendance Preferences page.
2. Select the Attendance recording methods. Any combination of the four options is valid.
3. Select Daily for the Default attendance page.
4. Select Two-way, keep records in sync for Meeting and daily attendance bridge. This option ensures that when a teacher enters attendance during the period defined as the daily attendance bridge period (defined in the bell schedule set up of periods), the attendance is reflected in both the daily attendance as well as the meeting attendance. It also ensures that when the attendance administrator updates daily attendance, the change is updated to the teacher’s attendance page. This synchronization only occurs for the period defined as the bridge period. If you are using both meeting and daily attendance methods, set separate meeting and daily attendance bridges. If you do not want to impact the teacher’s attendance page, then set this option to One-way, section to daily attendance.
5. Select Enable ADA Periods and Passing Time Deductions.

6. Choose how you want passing time deducted for Deduct Passing Time.

7. Click Submit.

Set up Attendance Conversions

If your school currently uses the daily attendance method, be sure to define the appropriate time items. For each time item, define the daily attendance value according to the number of minutes present, excluding lunch and passing time according to your school's needs. For detailed information, refer to Attendance Conversions.

Set up the Bell Schedule

Setting up the bell schedule to utilize DTE requires the following:

• Define the bridge period. 

• Identify the start and end times for school when defining the bridge period.

  

  Any attendance entered before the Default Time In or after the Default Time Out is not included in attendance minutes calculated and stored in PowerSchool.

• Be sure lunch periods are excluded from ADA calculations. Refer to Work with Daily Time Exclusion.
• If excluding passing time, be sure that the start and end times for all periods do not include passing time.

Define Bridge Period

The bridge period translates the attendance the teacher takes for that period into daily attendance minutes. When the teacher records attendance in the bridge period, daily attendance minutes are recorded. This figure is the maximum number of minutes the student can have for attendance for any given day.

1. Navigate to the Bell Schedules page. 
2. Click Edit Schedule next to the bell schedule you are working with. 
3. Click the period number for the bell schedule item you want to edit. 
4. Enter a start and end time for the period.
5. Select Counts for ADA to count this bell schedule item in average daily attendance calculations.

6. Select Use For Daily Attendance to use daily attendance for this bell schedule item.

7. Click Submit. 

Define Lunch Period

Create and schedule lunch periods so PowerSchool knows when to exclude the total lunch period time from the attendance calculation. Time for lunch can only be excluded if the period and/or section is excluded from ADA. Create one lunch course and as many sections of lunch as are necessary to fulfill your school's lunch requirements. If students go to lunch during different periods, then create a section for each of these periods. For more information, see Courses and Sections.

Set Passing Time

If attendance preferences are set to exclude passing time between periods, the passing time between periods is deducted. If there are no time gaps between the periods, then no time is deducted between periods. The following example shows a schedule that does not include passing time:

For more information about bell schedule items, refer to Calendar.

Exclude from Attendance Calculation

The ADA calculation inspects each section in which a student is enrolled to verify if it is marked as being excluded from the attendance calculation. If periods and sections are to be excluded from ADA (or count for ADA), the fields controlling inclusion/exclusion need to be set for each period and section. The intent of having both options is to provide some flexibility in accommodating the various types of schedules that are used. Whether the flag on the section or the period is used, students must be enrolled in a lunch section in order for the new ADA calculation to exclude the designated time.

Either a bell schedule period or scheduled section can be marked for exclusion in order for the time to be excluded from the attendance calculation. In order for the meeting minutes to count in the attendance calculation, both the bell schedule period and the scheduled section need to be marked for inclusion.

Exclude a Period

1. Navigate to the Bell Schedules page. 
2. Click Edit Schedule next to the name of the bell schedule you want to edit. 
3. Click the period number for the bell schedule item you want to edit. 
4. Deselect the Counts for ADA checkbox.
5. Click Submit.

Exclude a Section

1. Navigate to the Course Sections page.
2. Choose the course name from the courses menu. 
3. Click either the period or the section number in the Per and Sec# columns. 
4. Select the Exclude from Attendance checkbox.
5. Click Submit.

The Exclude from Attendance checkbox is also found on the Edit Course District Information page; however, the courses checkbox value is not considered when DTE calculations are made.