Attendence
We are a growing school, we had a student population of about 85 student about a year ago and now we have a 185 student, yea!
With this we have a current attendance requirement of 90% so we are complaint with the DOE regulation but looking around at other schools i did not come across one school who has this high standards. The majority of then have 75-80 % requirement, can you clarify what is the industry standard which is complaint with the department of education.
Joe,
Great topic for discussion - I hope you get some responses with best practices.
Traci Lee
Corrie Buck - I appreciate your perspective on this and share the same thoughts. It has helped keep my small school at a high pass rate for almost 6 years now BUT has also taken considerable time from my Education Director and teaching staff (who have other jobs and commitments). Even though I charge a high rate of $35 an hour for make up classes it does not seem to be enough of a financial determinant. Though sickness and family sickness has always been part of our history for absences. ANY SUGGESTIONS?
Kathie, I could not have said it better myself. My campus conducts attendance in much of the same manner. There are times when students must appeal to get their increased absents reviewed, but being able to prove the reason such as doctor's note etc. will do the trick. We have had great success with this strategy.
We schedule a "make up day" for Holidays (usually the Monday classes that are missed) as well as for absences. Students have to complete a make-up assignment for their lecture classes and they have to make up their clinical hours for those days they missed. Their make-up time is recorded by a sign-in sheet that the instructor has to sign off. We keep the sign in sheets and also enter the data into a spreadsheet as well as our attendance system and we note the date/s the absence was made-up. I hope this can help you and your school's requirements.
Nancy,
Hopefully, some schools will respond with some of their current practices. I am not at a clock hour school at present. However, I have previously seen some schools schedule a "make up day" each week/month/term, etc. where they actually recorded the hours attended to make up absences. I have also seen some schools with various structures record time completed toward various coursework/competencies using a time clock that tracked such attendance without predefined "classes" until the students each individually achieve the required hours. Some of the approaches may be subject to other requirements by various regulatory bodies.
Traci Lee
We are a clock hour school with a graduation requirement of 90% attendance. I can't imagine having less than that. I'm curious how those with 100% attendance handle resceduling of missed time to ensure 100%?
Yamira,
There certainly can be differences among licensing bodies and accreditation requirements - not just at a state level but between accreditation bodies at an institutional and/or programmatic level. I do think that some schools have established guidelines to ensure alignment with credit hour definitions that also may relate to the Dept of Ed guidelines effective with the July 2011 regulatory updates.
Traci Lee
Good afternoon!
Keep in mind that the DOE cannot pass judgement over the schools' educational quality, since it is a state level responsibility. As a result, it could be inferred that it is why the DOE had not established a specific %. Thus, most likely the differences we are sharing regarding the minimum % of attendance requirements either by program or in general, if credit or clock-hour, might be the result of practice differences among licensing bodies and Accreditation requirements at state level.
Tracy would you agree?
Thanks.
Russell,
I think students need to participate to gain from their education. "Attendance" is difficult to define with some modalities (such as distance education) and it will be interesting to see how things evolve as colleges become more innovative with online and hybrid models of delivery.
Traci Lee
Attendance is a must. How can an institution validate a students learning if the student is not in attendance. I like that the DOE has set guide lines for schools to follow by. If students were not accountable for the attendance, how would it carry over to their work practices. Which in return would be a direct reflection on the school placement percentage, because if students will not attend school and gain quality education we would not be place them.
Kathie,
Thanks for sharing the details of your process to manage attendance tracking. I think this is an important area for schools to ensure they document appropriately - particularly when there are approvals of exceptions.
Traci Lee
Our school has the graduation requirement "must be in attendance 90% or better." Since we are career school, we strive to ensure our students understand this policy. It's not acceptable in the workplace of skipping work, so we don't expect it in class. Students must call in or contact their instructor prior to missing a class just like the would inform their supervisor in the workforce. We do at times have students who miss more than the alloted 90% and must appeal to stay in school. There are those who also need to appeal to graduate because they have missed more than the 10% allowed. These students must have documentation for at least 50% of their absences in order for us to allow them to either come off probation or graduate.
I think by my campus haveing 100% attendance all the time is awesome, all of our students know that even if they miss 54 minutes they are required to make it up, plus I think it is an added bonus for employers to know that we require that so that they feel they will recieve the same once our students are working for them.
We require 100% attendance, with a minimum of 80% attendance and that you make up that 20% to equal 100%. It is a constant job to monitor and assist students with make up hours and scheduling it to fit their schedule. I have also found that we have a much higher standard than any other school within several states. My question is, why don't the other schools have such high standards?
To be in compliance with our state regulations regarding Massage Therapy Schools if a student misses 10% of any class this class must be repeated or remediated with a licensed instructor of that area.
CINDY,
Monitoring attendance can also be a great way to identify "at risk" students and counsel them to catch up (depending on your attendance policies) in an effort to retain, rather than having to drop a student.
Traci Lee
I think attendance is important, it helps when dropping a student
Our institution also has a 90% attendance requirement, though we are a credit-hour institution.
We have discovered that students really need to be attending nearly all of their classes in order to benefit fully from the instruction. 90% allows for a certain amount of leeway if they need to take a day off occasionally, but ensures that they are taking full advantage of their education.
As far as i know, the DOE requires a 90% attendance rate. Thats what we go by at all of our 34 schools. Infact we just raised teh attendance requrements to meet the 90%. Previuosly it was based on programs.
