The Daily Attendance Process

The daily SafeArrival process is used as soon as possible after attendance is taken to:

·        send notifications to parents/guardians of unexplained absences,

·        confirm parent/guardian awareness of absences AND

·        collect the absence reasons

Depending on your configuration, you may do this first thing in the morning and/or after lunch as well.

Your Daily Attendance Process depends on whether your district has been set up so that schools transfer their own attendance data (save a file from the student information system then import it into SafeArrival) OR the attendance data is transferred for them.  

If your district is set up for manual attendance file transfer:

How to know if your district is set up for manual attendance file transfer:

·        On the HOME page, the instructions will tell you that you haven’t started the SafeArrival process for today and that you will need to import your attendance data. The IMPORT YOUR ATTENDANCE DATA button will be active.

·        Record classroom attendance in your Student Information System.

·        ⦁ Export the absences to a file in the specified format and save it.

·        Sign in to SafeArrival. Go to the Home page.

·        Click IMPORT ATTENDANCE DATA. You will be asked to browse to the file that you saved above. Select your file.

·        Click SEND NOTIFICATIONS to begin the parent/guardian notifications. (NOTE: If there are zero unexplained absences, click SEND NOTIFICATIONS anyway so that the SafeArrival report will be generated.)

·        Then see the Follow-up Steps described below.

 

If your district is set up for automated attendance file transfer:

How to know if your district is set up for automated attendance file transfer:

·        On the HOME page, if you see the text “Data last updated at:” in the instructions, then your district is set up for automated attendance file transfer.

·        You will also need to know your AUTO NOTIFICATION type. On the SETTINGS page, click the tab labelled AUTO NOTIFICATION. It will tell you if your school is set up for Manual, Trigger or Schedule.

You will also need to know if you need to initiate the upload of your attendance file or whether this is done on a schedule. If you have not already been informed, please contact your SafeArrival District Administrator.

e.g. For PowerSchool, you may need to click Run Now for an AutoSend as soon as attendance is complete.

·        Record classroom attendance in your Student Information System.

·        If you are required to initiate the upload of your attendance file, do so as soon as attendance-taking is complete.

·        If your school uses the Manual notification option:

  • Sign in to SafeArrival. Go to the Home page.

  • If your attendance file is uploaded at scheduled intervals, wait at least 2 times the interval to ensure the latest file has finished uploading. The Data last updated at time shows when the attendance file was last uploaded.

  • Click IMPORT ATTENDANCE DATA.

  • Click SEND NOTIFICATIONS to begin the parent/guardian notifications. (NOTE: If there are zero unexplained absences, click SEND NOTIFICATIONS anyway so that the SafeArrival report will be generated.)

·        If your school uses the Trigger notification option:

  • As soon as the SafeArrival system receives your attendance file, the attendance file will be imported and notifications will begin automatically.

·        If your school uses the Schedule notification option:

  • At the scheduled time, the most recently-uploaded attendance file will be imported and notifications will begin automatically.

·        Then see the Follow-up Steps described below.

 

Follow-up Steps

1.      After the notification process has ended, the SafeArrival Summary on the SafeArrival Home Page shows the results. Click any category to see the list of students. You can also click DOWNLOAD SUMMARY to download a copy of the SafeArrival Report. In addition, the SafeArrival Report will also be emailed to everyone on the Report Recipients list for the school.

 

2.      If you have a high number of Unexplained absences after the notifications are complete, you may want to click RE-SEND NOTIFICATIONS. This will re-send all notifications for students who are still on the unexplained absences list.

 

3.       IMPORTANT: Click the Unexplained absences entry to see the list of students at the bottom of the screen. This is the list of students whose absence is still unexplained. You need to follow-up with parents/guardians/emergency contacts to ensure that this student is safe!

4.      Next, see the Explained absences list on the screen or in the emailed SafeArrival report. This section lists the absence reasons that have been provided for today’s absences. Enter this information into your Student Information System as needed. In general, you should enter the absence reasons for Full Day Absences. For Late Arrivals, monitor the student arrivals and enter the reason provided. See the All Absences list for Early Departures and Leave & Return absences; wait for the student’s actual departure, then enter the absence reason.


If your school is configured for automatic absence reason write-back, the absence reasons for Full Day and Multi-Day absences will be automatically written to the Student Information System if there is an existing, matching unexplained absence already in the system. e.g. If a parent reported a Full Day absence for today for Johnny due to Illness and Johnny is marked with an unexplained absence in the Student Information System, the reason “Illness” will be applied to that unexplained absence.

If your school allows parents/guardians to continue to report/explain absences after the notification period is over (e.g. your cut-off time is later in the day), another report will be emailed at the cutoff time. This report will contain all the absences that were reported/explained for that day, including those after the cutoff time. This report should be used the next morning to complete the transfer of absence reasons to your student information system.

Note regarding Discrepancies:

When there is an absence reported through SafeArrival that covers the current notification time AND there is no corresponding Marked Absence

·        IF the absence reported through SafeArrival has already been used to explain an earlier Marked Absence, then the absence reported through SafeArrival is shown in the All Absences section.

·        Otherwise (when the absence reported through SafeArrival has NOT already been used to explain an earlier Marked Absence), then the absence reported through SafeArrival is shown in the Discrepancies section.

 

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