Attendance Setup Information

The South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) provides standardized attendance codes for use in PowerSchool. These codes must not be altered, nor should any new codes be added. Any non-approved codes will be flagged as invalid. For definitions, refer to the latest South Carolina Attendance Manual. If you have questions about attendance codes, contact the Chronic Absenteeism Liaison in the Office of Student Intervention.

Attendance Setup:

This guide provides PowerSchool Administrators with essential steps and best practices for setting up attendance at the beginning of the school year. Accurate attendance setup is crucial to ensure proper ADA calculations, compliance reporting, and seamless daily operations. From defining attendance codes and conversions to configuring bell schedules and attendance views, this resource helps schools lay a strong foundation for tracking student presence effectively throughout the year.

Attendance Preferences:

Associated Procedure(s): The "Present" attendance code must be listed first, with a sort order of 1. This is crucial for the proper functioning of PowerTeacher Pro grade books and PowerSchool attendance features. The sort order for all other codes can be decided by the district.

Refer to the "PowerSchool Attendance Setup" procedure for guidance on data entry for all attendance-related pages

Attendance conversions are essential for calculating attendance in PowerSchool. They play a crucial role in ensuring accurate Average Daily Attendance (ADA) and chronic absenteeism reporting.

Attendance code categories are used to group attendance codes for reporting and searching purposes, ensuring report accuracy. The following SCDE-approved attendance code categories must not be altered, and no new categories should be added without prior approval from the Office of Student Intervention Services.

The bell schedule outlines the order of in-session periods for a given day and affects attendance and membership reports. It determines the start and end times for the school day and each period within it. To calculate daily attendance, bell schedules must be linked to an attendance conversion method. In South Carolina, these methods must begin with “SCDE Attendance…” (e.g., “SCDE Attendance Half-Day”).

Only one bell schedule can be assigned per day, but different days can have different bell schedules, such as:

• Regular bell schedule

• Half-day bell schedule

• Two-hour delay bell schedule

The PowerSchool calendar determines the days when attendance can be recorded. For attendance to be taken on In-Session school days, a bell schedule and cycle day must be assigned.

Please refer to the Years, Terms, Periods, Day Cycle and Bell Schedules Scribe for further information.

Updating Mass Attendance

To ensure accurate funding reports, instructional days must be marked as In-Session and have a Membership Value of 1. The calendar must include 180 In-Session days. Section §59-1-425 of the South Carolina Code of Laws defines the start and duration of the school term, make-up days, waivers, and instructional days.

If you have any questions, please contact the CIE PowerSchool Department at your earliest convivence.

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