So my school is getting audited this year so they're making us go through this painstaking routine of taking attendance. We are given weekly attendance rosters where we have to record attendance. Then we have to enter the attendance into the computer. Then the next week, they give us the attendance they got on their system so we can go back and compare it to the hard copy we got. Then we sign it and submit it. Jesus Christ.
Umm... that doesn't strike me as terribly unusual. We take attendance every day, every period, and then get a print out of those records from the office to confirm against our own records. If those don't match for any reason, we need to write the office to adjust it. Attendance records are critical for state funding, and for the safety of students... if a kid isn't there, we phone home to confirm with parents.
We don't have to keep attendance records on paper, but we input them into the computer every period. We often have kids come to school late, so as they enter, we update the record, for example from 'absent' change it tardy < 30 minutes, or tardy > 30 minutes. It's important that we record attendance right away in each class so the office know if someone is ditching class. Then every Friday the office gives me printed records that I sign. It's not that big of a deal. Actually I make copies of this record so when I grade classwork, I know if someone was not there or just chose not to do his work.
Next thing you know they'll want lesson plans and actual teaching. Oh the humanity! And really...it's worth throwing a JC out there? Classy.
Offended by Jesus Christ? Must be a religious one. Attendance is not the issue. In essence taking attendance three times is the issue. Throw on top the misc. other things you do daily that involves paperwork, and a lot of time is taken away from actual planning and lesson designing. Jesus Christ!
Seems to be fairly normal practice for the other teachers in this thread, so it really shouldn't be that big a detractor from the rest of your time. All par for the course in teaching. It also seems a bit uncouth to be purposefully insulting to people whose advice/commiseration you've sought, no?
Nice. The thing I hate about our attendance system is we take attendance everyday, but then we still have to fill out these lengthy "warning notices" every time a student hits 7, 9, and 11 absences since they lose credit at 12. It's a real hassle---I wish they would just automate that process.
Doesn't seem terribly abnormal to me, through three step attendance can certainly be tedious. We take attendance daily and then at some point after 9:30 there's a print out in the office and before the end of the day we're expected to look at it and let our attendance person know if something doesn't match. Like Susie is marked absent but actually arrived at 10:00 and it never got changed to tardy from absent. I guess the one difference with your system is then having to check it AGAIN a third time. I'd think it would make more sense to eliminate the first step and just have you do it by computer and then sign off on the print out. Honestly though, when I first read your post I thought you were just complaining about having to take attendance, period. I had to reread to realize there were three steps involved. So, people's initial responses may be more related to "he's complaining he has to take attendance" as compared to "he's complaining his attendance has three different steps to it."
We take our attendance "by hand" and send it down to the office within the first 15 minutes of the day. One of the secretaries verifies it, and begins to make phone calls for any students unaccounted for. Once a month, we check our attendance folder against a computer print-out.
I've never had to take attendance more than once. Last two years used Power School. Just clicked submit and done. I agree, sometimes it seems like added paperwork just detracts from teaching. Last year we had to submit "vertical slices" to our principal. I will wait and see how many of you have had to do that!!!
We have to do something similar. I don't think people understood you the first time. Taking attendance 3 times is silly and a waste of time. The fact that inefficiency is normal tells you something.
I understood. We really did have to take attendance 3 times last year. This year it will only be 2 times! Woohoo!! I agree that it gets annoying, but I have far more time consuming things than attendance to complain about...
I can't imagine doing that for high school classes. It's all I can do to get it into the computer once in the morning for my fifth grade. I am not very good with tasks like that.
It is when the principal asks every teacher for a list of what they are teaching that day for each subject or a particular subject. So that she can see what is going on across grade levels. It doesn't sound like a big deal by itself, but we were being hit by so many new things at once last year, that the teachers were up in arms! It was the straw, kwim?
