Basic Attendance Setup

Attendance Tracking and Notification requires that PowerSchool attendance is set up to accurately calculate attendance and membership. The attendance setup elements that directly affect Attendance Tracking and Notification are:

Attendance Code Categories for Attendance Tracking

Attendance code categories are used to identify types of attendance. The attendance codes associated to a particular category must either be absent codes or present codes. For example, you must set up an attendance code category to track unexcused absences, and all of the codes assigned to the category must be absent codes. The default Unexcused category set up in PowerSchool is designed to track unexcused absences and can be used for attendance tracking and notification. Alternatively, if you want to track unexcused absences separately for different reports, then you must set up two unexcused absence categories, one for attendance tracking and notification and one for other purposes.

If you want to track unexcused tardies in attendance tracking and notification, you must set up an unexcused tardy attendance code category. Note that tardies are considered present, thus all codes assigned to the Tardy attendance code category must be present codes. In order to track both unexcused tardies and unexcused absences, you must have a separate attendance code category for each.

Once attendance code categories are set up, these code categories must be associated to the appropriate attendance codes and attendance tracking category, in order to properly track attendance.

For information about associating attendance code categories with attendance tracking categories, refer to Unexcused Tracking Categories or Illness Tracking Categories. 

For more information about attendance code categories, refer to Attendance Code Categories.

Attendance Codes for Attendance Tracking

Attendance codes are used to assign an attendance to a student for a particular day, section meeting, or interval. For example, you may set up attendance codes such as Unexcused Absence (UE) and Illness Absence (IL).

Once attendance codes are set up, these codes must be associated with the appropriate attendance code category. If you track both unexcused tardies and unexcused absences, you must assign one category or the other to an attendance code, but not both. If an attendance code is considered both an unexcused absence (absent) and an unexcused tardy (present), then two attendance tracking records are created from one attendance code assigned to the student.

For most attendance reports, attendance status is determined by the presence status (Present or Absent) of the attendance code. For attendance tracking and notification reports, however, the presence status is ignored. Instead, the student's status is determined by the unique settings used for attendance tracking.

For more information about attendance codes, refer to Attendance Codes.

Basic Attendance Setup Summary

• Attendance codes must be set up.
• 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.