When I run Attendance Report for Application Center.  The Instructional day count state 181.  This is not correct it was 180 student days.

It is because you have a waiver day.  The instructional day count currently is student instructional days plus waiver days.

We have several Hispanic students that leave on vacation to Mexico for two weeks or more. How do we mark them so they do not count against our attendance?  Can we withdraw them and then re-enroll them when they return? 

This method does not seem to be consistent with the intent of the law, especially where the LEA knows the students are not withdrawing.  This is not the only circumstance where this problem occurs.  We have several faith traditions that hold their all-family meetings in the middle of October. Rather than engage in this scheme, use of recent legislation is recommended:  IC 20-33-2-17.5.

The statute reads as follows: 

IC 20-33-2-17.5 Compulsory school attendance; exceptions; educationally related non classroom activity; non classroom activity

Sec. 17.5. The governing body of a school corporation may authorize the absence and excuse of a student who attends any educationally related non classroom activity. Any educationally related non classroom activity and non classroom activity must meet all the following conditions:

 (1) Is consistent with and promotes the educational philosophy and goals of the school corporation and the state board. 

(2) Facilitates the attainment of specific educational objectives. 

(3) Is a part of the goals and objectives of an approved course or curriculum.

(4) Represents a unique educational opportunity. 

(5) Cannot reasonably occur without interrupting the school day. 

(6) Is approved in writing by the school principal.

As added by P.L.185-2006, SEC.14.

A student is hospitalized for an indefinite period of time.  Do we have to mark them medical-excused if they are receiving homework from their teachers? Or can we count them as present since they are completing the work? 

Are students that are in the hospital, illnesses that lead toward homebound, doctor’s appointments, etc. should/can these students be exempt from AYP attendance? 

How should we count a student who a doctor completes a “Certificate of Incapacity” in the school attendance code?  I had a severe and profound student that was only able to attend a full week of school 6 weeks during the entire school year.  He is in a degenerative state and when at home, unable to receive homebound services.  The student is usually not in attendance an average of 2 days per week. Does this count against our school attendance? 

The certificate would be needed for the child that was hospitalized to clarify the prognosis of the condition and help define what treatment is necessary by the school.  This does not excuse the absence but should help define what the conditions are. The child might be eligible for the Homebound program and if that is the case, once on it, the times away from school are considered days in attendance if related to the disability.

Homebound rules are here:  http://www.doe.in.gov/sservices/pdf/homebound.pdf

Do we count a student on homebound instruction as present on the AT report? 

If the student is on homebound, then time away from school that is directly related to the disabling condition is considered in attendance in reports to the state.

If a student had an extended illness and the parent did not complete the request for homebound instruction, is that student counted absent? 

Homebound instruction under the provisions of Article 7 has a distinct requirement of a physician's statement. If the parent has not complied and you have not implemented a homebound program then the student is absent. 

Do we count attendance at the alternative education program? 

If the students are still enrolled at their high schools and the joint alternative program is considered a program of each high school, each high school should report these students in attendance on the days that they are scheduled to attend and NOT record them as absent on days they were not scheduled to attend. (It is similar to how you report a student who receives homebound services 3 days a week.) Therefore, if alternative education students are to attend 5 days a week for 4 hours (presuming a Shortened School Day form is filed with Accreditation) they would be in attendance for 5 days. If you operate on Saturday, if a student missed a day and made up the day on Saturday, they would still be in attendance for 5 days. If no days are specified but students are to attend 20 hours a week and they do, they would be in attendance for 5 days.

What constitutes a "half day" and a "full day"?  For example: If a student is present 3 periods of an 8 period day, are they present for half day and absent a half day? 

Yes, the student would be counted present for a half day and absent a half day because it was determined locally, that lunch time is the half day point. The following is the Indiana Administrative Code for computing your attendance counts: 

511 IAC 1-3-3 Average Daily Enrollment Section 3

(b) Attendance shall be taken twice during each full student day, once in the morning session  and once in the afternoon session. A student in attendance during any part of the day, up to and including one-half (1/2) of the day, shall be counted as one-half (1/2). A student in attendance for more than one-half (1/2) of the day shall be counted as one (1). A full student instructional day shall be counted as one (1) in determining the number of student instructional days in the regular school year.

(c) Attendance shall be taken once during each partial student instructional day. A student in attendance during any part of the day shall be counted as one-half (1/2). A partial student instructional day counts as one-half (1/2) in determining the number of student instructional days in the regular school year. 

Students who live in our district but attend a special needs school should be included in our PE report, but not our AT report, is that correct? 

No, that is not correct.  The student should be counted where they actually attend for both the PE and the AT.

We have a student who attends a private school a half day and then attends the career center the other half of the day. We fund his half day at the career center.  It is my understanding (according to scenario #7) is this still correct that since he will receive his diploma, grades, etc. from the private school he attends that they are the "primary" school and are responsible for reporting his entire AT record.  Am I correct? 

Yes, that is correct.

I have 180 instructional days.  I have a student who was enrolled from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year.  She had 3 excused absences, 1 unexcused absence, and had 5 suspension days. I would report Days Attended as 171, Excused Days Absent as 3, and Unexcused Days Absent as 1. Is this correct? 

Yes, that is correct.  You will also report a record in the EXSU Report for the Suspension. 

We have a student that withdrew for a month and then returned before the end of the year. How do we handle their enrollment dates? 

You will have two records for that student.  One from the first day of school until the time that the student left and a second record for the date the student returned until the end of the school year.

What do we do with students who transferred to another school midway through the school year? Do we have to include their attendance time in our attendance report?

Yes, you do have to include their attendance.  The record will contain a beginning date of the first day that the student started with you and the end date will be the last day that the student attended your school.  The student should have two records, one from each school. 

A student attended all day Kindergarten five days a week and was present all week; are they counted as being here 5 days? 

You would count the student just like you would count any other student in grades 1-6. They would be counted as attended for 5 days and absent for 0 days for that week. 

I have students that were enrolled in full day Kindergarten for let's say 75% of the year, and then they went to 1/2 day Kindergarten. How do I calculate that? How do I report their absences when they were in both full day and half day throughout the year?

You would count the student as full day (just like above) for the amount of time that they were in the full day kindergarten and then switch to 1/2 day counting when the student switched over to the 1/2 day kindergarten program. If they were absent 4 full days while in the full day program you would count that as 4 and then if they were absent 3 half-days from the 1/2 day program that would be counted as 1.5 giving them a total of 5.5 days absent for the year.

Should OSS be counted as In Attendance or Unexcused Absence? 

The OSS will not be included in the Attendance data at all. For example, if the student was suspended out of school for 5 days, instead of the student having 180 attended they will only have 175 days attended (if the attended all other school days). You will then report 5 days of OSS on the EXSU Report.

I see that you are requesting a full day count on the ME report.  Will school year 20062007 DOEAT report submitted at the end of the year be figured by counting students present a full day if they attend any part of that day? 

DOE-AT data is still collected by 1/2 day counts. 

Regarding Scenario #8:  Are days attended + unexcused absent + excused absent matched with the enrolled (instructional) days?  If so, wouldn't days suspended (or expelled) cause those numbers to be out of balance?

They will be out of balance but the days will be picked-up on either the expulsion or suspension report in the fall. Check to make sure this is still scenario #8.

Is the formula for Days Attended meant to be (days enrolled for this student - (days unexcused absent + days excused absent))?  

Yes, the student was enrolled the entire year for 180 days; the student had no unexcused absences and 5 days of excused absence. Days Attended = 175, Days unexcused absent = 0, and days excused absence=5.

If we count a half day suspended student as ½ on the AT report and 1 day on the EXSU Report, won’t that cause conflict?  

Suspensions (and expulsions) are reported as whole days, while attendance is report in half-day increments. This will not cause any conflict;’ these collections are separate and do not need to “match up” in this regard. 

As the Expulsion and Suspension (DOE-EXSU) data layout states, a “student suspended any portion of the day is counted as 1 full day.  A student suspended during an instructional ½ day is counted as 1 full day.”  Meanwhile, according to 511 IAC 1-3-3, “A student in attendance during any part of the day, up to and including one-half (1/2) of the day, shall be counted as one-half (1/2). A student in attendance for more than one-half (1/2) of the day shall be counted as one (1).”  

We are having difficulty delineating excused and unexcused absences. What is the definition of 'excused' absence?  If the excused absences are considered days attended then why must we report them at all? Would polls, pages, field trips be considered excused absences? What about juvenile detention, guardian home, homebound, religious instruction, hospital and so forth? 

'Unexcused absence' means an absence from school that is not authorized by the local school administrator or local school corporation rule and is a violation of the IC 20-33-2-14, 15, 16 and 17. An out-of-school suspension is not an unexcused absence. For pages, polls, etc. please see IC 2033-2-14, 15, 16 and 17.

In-School Suspension and Detention  

Below are approved definitions necessary for the collection of the DOE-SU and DOE-AT. In-School Suspension: Student is removed from an assigned class or activity to another setting in order to maintain an orderly and effective educational system.  If instruction in the general education curriculum continues during this removal to another setting, the student is counted in attendance.  

Detention: Student experiences disciplinary action at a time other than during instructional time in order to maintain an orderly and effective educational system.  Because such actions do not occur during instructional time, attendance is not counted in reports to the state.  

Please explain the AT warning and Error on determining number of days allowed and how they are calculated. 

I am getting this warning message on my DOE-AT file:  This student was reported to be in attendance at school 3004 on October 1st 2006 but no Pupil Enrollment record was found in the same school. What should I do about it?

Warnings will not cause your file or record to be rejected. They are generated by the Application Center when you have submitted information that is unusual or in conflict with previously submitted data. In this instance, a student was reported in the Attendance (DOEAT) data file as being a student at school 3004 last October 1st. If this was the case, the student should have been reported for the Pupil Enrollment count (in last October's DOE-PE data submission), but was not.

What you should do about this warning:

1 Re-check the AT records that got warnings to assure that the information currently being submitted is correct. If the information is incorrect, make appropriate changes and resubmit it (or edit the record in the AT Input form or "Student Detail" screen).  2 If the information is correct, put a note in your records indicating that these items were checked and found to be correct. (The data file will continue to have the warnings associated with it in our system, so it is good to have documentation that the records were reviewed in case there is ever any question.)

The Pupil Enrollment data is closed for this year, so those records can no longer be changed. However, you should consider ways to avoid omitting Pupil Enrollment records in next October's DOE-PE collection. 

I am getting an error when I transfer my DOE-AT file that says date is a required field. 

BOS and EOS are taken from the corporation calendar that was submitted to DOE prior to the beginning of the school year. If we do not have a calendar for your corporation you will get this error. For nonpublic schools: When you send the DOE-AT report, please manually convert the BOS and EOS to the exact dates of the beginning of school and end of school. We cannot accept BOS and EOS because we do not collect the calendar by school for non publics. 

I have discovered that a student listed in the AT should not be in the AT because he lives in our district but attended another school. How do I remove him?

Do a STN Lookup and click on the 'Attendance' tab.  There should be a 'red X' on the right-hand side of the screen.  Click on the 'red X' to delete the incorrect record.  You can only delete the record if you were the individual who sent the record or if you are a corporation user. 

I have multiple records with the same "Failed Record" message:  "The value -.5 for days attended is not a positive multiple of 0.5. All days attended values must be greater than zero and end in .0 or .5."  Could someone check my download and explain to me what that message is all about?

A -.5 is says that you have reported a negative 1/2 day of attendance.  A student cannot have a negative value for attendance. 

I have a school that has 189 instructional days. All 'AT' records get flagged as errors and won't load. What do I do? 

Your school calendar can be adjusted to those dates if you will let us know what the school number is that this involves. Is this still correct? 

I am getting warnings which say our last day of school was 6/1/2007, but it wasn't. Where does the state get the first/last day of school information from?  How can I get it corrected?  Is this still correct?

We pulled the dates from the 2006-2007 school calendar that was submitted to us from your corporation office.  Please send your corporation number, begin and end dates and we will update your calendar.  Will we still update their data or will they do this via the App. Center? 

I have a failed record after submitting my AT Report.  This record never should have been sent.  Do I need to somehow delete the record, or just notify you by fax that the record was incorrect and never should have been sent? 

If the record 'failed' then it was never loaded into the attendance data.  You don't need to do anything.  If you want you scoreboard to reflect a green light then you will need to take the record out of your file and transfer it again. 

We are getting an error message that records overlap.  We have checked the history which shows previous school attendance through 9/12/07.  Our attendance records for the student begin 9/16/07.  There is no overlap.  What do we do? 

You should be checking the attendance, not the history.  Please check the beginning dates for each of the students that are in question in the file that you transferred to us. 

A student enrolled in our school on 04/27/07 and attended the rest of the year. The school he came from already submitted their AT Report and mistakenly reported that the student was at their school the entire year.  Do I have to resolve this issue with the other school myself or is this something you can handle at your end? 

You will have to resolve the issue.