View student attendance trends and enter attendance

You can view daily and class attendance for the following date ranges on the same page:

  • Last two weeks
  • This week
  • Last four weeks
  • Month
  • Term

Teachers and administrators can use this information to notice any attendance trends a student, or group of students, might be following.

In the Staff view, teachers can also use these trend pages to enter daily and class attendance. This way, they can see trends as they develop.

Note: By default, Aspen uses a negative attendance model, meaning that students are presumed present unless marked absent by a teacher or staff member. However, administrators can require all courses in the organization to use a positive attendance model, in which students are considered absent unless marked present. This feature can also be enabled for specific course sections.

Note that if your district or school requires you to take positive attendance, it only changes how you enter attendance for your classes. You still enter and post daily attendance to the office as you normally would.

To view trends:

  1. Do one of the following:
    • Log on to the School view. Click the Attendance tab, and do one of the following:
      • To view daily attendance trends, click the Daily Roster side-tab. Select a class or homeroom, and then click Trends on the side-tab. 
      • To view class attendance trends, click the Class Trends side-tab. Select a class.
    • Log on to the School view. Click the Student tab, and do one of the following:
      • To view daily attendance trends, select a student, and then click the Attendance side tab. Click Daily Trends on the side-tab.
      • To view class attendance trends, select a student, then click the Attendance side-tab. Click the Class Trends side-tab. Select a class. Click Trends on the side-tab.
    • Log on to the Staff view. Click the Attendance tab, and do one of the following:
      • To view daily attendance trends, click the Daily side-tab, then Trends.
      • To view class attendance trends, click the Class side-tab. Select a class, and then click Trends on the side-tab. 

      Note: When viewing class trends for a class that spans more than one period, select the appropriate period from the Period drop-down. (This drop-down appears if your school opted to take attendance during each period of a multi-period class in Preferences.)

      The trends grid can display more than one attendance code for a multi-period class. For instance, if a student was marked absent (A) during Period 1 but arrived tardy (T) during Period 2, the grid would show A,T for that class.

    • The attendance trends page for that section appears.

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  1. Use the Filter menu Filter icon. to determine the number of weeks you want to view attendance for. You can click a student's name to view their trends for up to an entire year.
  2. If you are a teacher using the Staff view to enter attendance for the current date and/or period, click Enable Attendance Buttons. The codes appear to the right of the trend columns.
  3. To enter daily attendance on the Daily Attendance Trends page, click the appropriate code for all students who are not present.
  4. To enter class attendance on the Class Attendance Trends page, do one of the following:
    • If your administrator has set your school or course section to use negative attendance, all students will be marked Present by default. If a student is not present, click the appropriate code, such as A for absent. If your school wants you to record more information for specific attendance codes, such as tardy, a pop-up prompts you for that information.

    • Note: If your school takes second daily attendance, and you need to enter other codes for your attendance records, enter the other code for AM in the first Other codes field (on the left), and the other code for PM in the second Other codes field (on the right) in the Class Attendance pop-up:
    • If your administrator has set your school or course section to use positive attendance, all students will be marked Absent by default. If a student is not absent, click the appropriate code, such as P for present. If your school wants you to record more information for specific attendance codes, such as tardy, a pop-up prompts you for that information.

    • Note: If your course section uses positive attendance:

      • Prior to posting or saving, a message at the top of the page reminds you to mark students present.
      • The P (Present) and A (Absent) codes appear by default.
  1. Click Post to post the attendance to the office:

  2. page that lets you post attendance.

    Notes: When the Attendance activity tracking preference is enabled by the district (root organization), intermediate organization, or school:

    • The Attendance History icon might appear in the History column on the Daily Attendance Trends or Class Attendance Trends page. This icon indicates that the student had a class or daily attendance record for that day. Click the icon to see a list of attendance activities in the Attendance History pop-up. If the icon is red, the attendance record is locked, and you cannot edit it.
    • If the Override Reason field appears on the Attendance Details pop-up, then an override reason is required. Click and then select a code to describe the absence. If you select Other, enter an Activity Comment to describe the reason.

    Note: The Class Attendance list page in the Staff view (Attendance tab, Class side-tab) does not show courses or course sections that are are flagged to prevent period attendance input.