Teacher Guide to ASCENDER TeacherPortal

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First Day of School

IMPORTANT: Attendance is not taken on the first day of school. Students are not marked absent on the first day of school.

For campuses NOT using Student Activation/First Day Counts:

On the first day of school, teachers cannot use TeacherPortal to record or post attendance during the ADA period. You can only view and print data, and you must record attendance manually on the printed sheets.

  1. Click Print to print the attendance list for each period-course. The Attendance Roster Report Selection page opens allowing you to make selections for printing the Attendance Roster report.
  2. Mark attendance on the list manually.
  3. If you have students in a period who are not on the attendance list, print their names and student IDs in the rows provided at the bottom of the list.
  4. Sign and date the list on the lines provided.

Student Activation/First Day Counts:

Activating students using this process allows you to identify No Show students and correctly enroll students who begin school after the first day of school. It also ensures that students who do show up for school have the proper enrollment dates for the district, campus, special programs, and first semester courses.

The primary way students are activated is by teachers recording attendance in TeacherPortal. Once teachers have marked and posted attendance, the campus staff can address the individual students who could not be activated by teachers.

All students are marked inactive before school starts. As you take attendance, the students are activated as they show up in class. After a period of time (determined by each campus), any student who has not been activated is considered a No Show.

The TeacherPortal Post/View Attendance displays differently during the activation window: Teachers mark present students as Activated rather than Present.

REMINDER: On the first day of school, a student cannot be marked as absent.





From this page, you can print the attendance list for each period-course (or the campus can supply a class roster). If a student shows up in a period who is not on the attendance list, you must write the student's name and ID either in the blank rows provided at the bottom of the list, or on the form provided by the district/campus, and submit to the campus office.

Last day for mass activation

During the activation window, this field is displayed above the attendance grid, which indicates the final date of the activation window. If there are students from multiple attendance tracks enrolled in the course, and the tracks have different ending dates for mass activation, all dates are displayed with the track number in parentheses.

Attendance

On the first day of school, in the Attendance column, the Activate and Inactive fields are displayed for all students instead of the Absent and Present fields. All students are set to Inactive by default.

Activate

Select on the first day-period the student is present.

Activation is a one-time process. Once a student has been activated in any period by any teacher, the student is active for all remaining periods for the day, and subsequent teachers will mark attendance using the Absent and Present fields.

The next period you have the student (either later in the day or the next class date), the Absent, Tardy, and Present fields will be displayed for the student.

NOTE: Activated students are considered present and are included in the total number of students displayed in the # Students field at the bottom of the grid.

Inactive

If the student is not present, leave that student set to Inactive until they attend class.

As long as the student is marked as Inactive, he is considered a No Show. You cannot mark attendance for an inactive student.

Inactive students are not included in the total number of students displayed in the # Students field at the bottom of the grid.

NOTE: If there are students from multiple attendance tracks enrolled in the course, and the tracks have different ending dates for mass activation, the track number is displayed in parentheses in the Attendance column.


❏ Click Post.



If you activate a student after the first day of school, but during the activation window, the following occurs:

  • A No Show record is created for the student on the first day of school.
  • An enrollment record is created with the entry date set to the student's activation date.
  • The student's enrollment date in all courses on the campus for the semester is set to the activation date.
  • The student's special program enrollment date(s) are set to the activation date, if applicable.
  • If the student's original entry date has a current year date (i.e., the first day of school), the student's original entry date is changed to the activation date.


During the activation window, you may have a mix of activated and inactivated students in your classes.

• Activated students will have the Present/Absent/Tardy options displayed.
• Inactive students will have the Activate/Inactive options displayed.





The Attendance Roster report will display the Activate and Inactive fields for students who have not yet been activated.



Once the activation window has ended:

Any students who remained inactive will have the message “Attendance Exempt” displayed in the Attendance column. Attendance cannot be marked for these students.

These students will no longer be displayed on the rosters once the campus has created the No Show records.