The following attendance balancing procedures are recommended by Illuminate as one way to perform month end attendance balancing. Each district's attendance auditors may require things this to be done differently. Also, what is needed in hard copy will differ from district to district. Please verify internally the process that needs to be followed. Each report referenced below can be found either in the Attendance module or in the Students module. Below is a quick view of sample reports to run daily, weekly, and monthly for attendance reporting and balancing.
DAILY REPORTS - Missing Attendance, Absence Reconciliation, ADA Checker
WEEKLY REPORTS - ADA Checker, Weekly Verification Reports, Daily ADA
MONTHLY REPORTS - ADA Checker, Gains and Losses, Daily ADA, Cumulative Attendance
Daily Reports
Illuminate recommends running the Missing Attendance Report (Click Here!), the Absence Reconciliation Report (Click Here!), and the ADA Checker (Click Here!) on a daily basis. This helps ensure accurate attendance practices on a daily basis, thus enabling sites to correct erroneous actions before the end of the month.
Weekly Reports
Illuminate recommends running the ADA Checker (Click Here!), the Weekly Verification Report, and the Daily ADA (Click Here!) on a weekly basis. Running the ADA Checker helps confirm that the daily practices of teachers taking attendance and absence reconciliation are actually occurring. The Weekly Verification Report is run in accordance to state best practices and provides an opportunity for teachers to review their attendance and confirm accuracy. These signed forms should be stored in a secure location in the office. The Daily ADA report itself should be run on a weekly basis as a quick check to make sure everything is looking right. For most sites, this means making sure all appropriate Funding Categories are appearing as available on the report.
Monthly Reports
For Monthly Reporting, Illuminate highly recommends running ADA Checker (Click Here!), Gains and Losses (Click Here!), Cumulative Attendance, and Daily ADA (Click Here!). There are also several other reports that could be beneficial to run to confirm accuracy for end of the month reporting. Below is a further dive into the aforementioned reports, as well as a few additional reports (Click Here!).
The following attendance exceptions reports should be printed/viewed and all exceptions cleared.
- Missing Attendance Report - No teachers should be listed on the missing attendance report for any days in the month.
- Absence Reconciliation Report - All absences should be reconciled as some type of excused or unexcused absence. For secondary schools that take attendance per period, No sections should be listed as missing attendance.
- Entry Date Exception Report - No students should be on the list if their first/last day present matches the scheduled entry/exit dates.
The Gains and Losses Report is located in the Students tab in the Reports section.
- The Starting Enrollment and End of Day Enrollment count listed for the last school day of the report period should match with those shown on the Daily ADA and Cumulative Attendance Report. Both of these reports are found in the Attendance module in the Reports section. Many clients also keep a manual log of Gains and Losses that they use to verify the numbers and help with checks and balances.
Note: For month one all students are counted as a Gain on the first day of school. You will need to scroll down to the last student listed as a first day Gain to get the starting enrollment number.
After enrollment totals have been verified with the Gains and Losses report in the step above:
- Verify that the Overall Totals categories (found at the bottom of the Cumulative Attendance Report) match the same category on the Daily ADA Report Program All line (last row of the ADA Report).
This is what you are looking for to match on both reports. The word on the left is what is found on the Cumulative Attendance Report. The word in ( ) is what is found on the Daily ADA report:
- Absences = (Abs)
- Presents = (Apport)
- Not Enrolled = (N/E)
- Possible Days = (Poss)
- Scheduled Days = (Sched)
- Presents (from total on Cumulative Attendance report) Divided by Days (on ADA report ) = ADA ALL (on ADA report)
This report is typically printed after all enrollment, attendance, and scheduling exceptions and discrepancies mentioned above are corrected.
Other Helpful Reports
- Class Summary (found in the Attendance module: This report displays attendance detail by class and by student. It is used to identify discrepancies in Days Present and ADA%. It can be used in conjunction with the monthly Gains and Losses and ADA Report to verify that ending enrollments are in balance. Additionally it can be used to compare the number of times each attendance flag is used per section, per student and see the overall number of times each student has been present, tardy, and absent.
- Enrollment by Teacher (found in the Students module): This report displays enrollment counts by teacher and grade. While it is useful during scheduling, it can also be used in conjunction with the Monthly Gains and Losses and ADA Report to verify that ending enrollments are in balance. If used this way, it should be run on the last day of the Attendance Month to compare ending enrollments. If you need to run a report to see student names that make up the enrollment count try running the Rosters by Classroom Report found in the Students module.
- Incomplete Schedules (Secondary): This report identifies students that are not scheduled to a period or periods.
- For a complete description listing of other available reports please see The lesson titled Attendance Reports Overview and Enrollment Reports Overview.