ISBE Attendance: Verify Attendance Calendar Configuration (Illinois Only)
3/18/2021
Last March we released software updates to support taking attendance during remote/e-learning days. The software allows students to check-in, declaring their intention to participate in e-learning that day, and is triggered by a radio button on the academic calendar day.
We made these changes months before the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) announced new calendar day codes for remote/e-learning (e.g. XELD, XRLD, etc.).
The new calendar day codes make the radio buttons redundant. Selecting a remote/e-learning calendar day code should be enough to trigger the e-learning attendance features for Illinois customers. There is no need for a separate radio button and leaving it creates an opportunity for misconfiguration between the two fields. Over the weekend we will remove the radio button for Illinois customers and transition e-learning check-in to the calendar day code. This will provide a better solution and simplify the user experience.
In preparation for the release we looked at our customers’ academic calendars and found some conflicts that need to be corrected before the radio button is removed.
Since the calendar day code and radio button report the same information, they should always point to the same method of instruction. For example, if the radio button is set to e-learning, then the calendar code should be set to a remote or e-learning code (e.g. XELD, XRLD, etc.). At many school districts we found days where this is not the case, which is likely the result of misconfiguration. Once the radio button is removed, the calendar day code will be the only record and any potential misconfigurations will no longer be visible.
We wanted to give you the opportunity to correct these issues before the radio button is removed. To help you with this, we’ve added a Conflicting E-Learning Days button to Admin Main > Academic Calendars.
The resulting page shows any days where the calendar code and radio button conflict.
Clicking edit allows you to resolve the conflict by updating the calendar code or radio button.
We encourage our Illinois customers to check the Conflicting E-Learning Days page prior to the update this weekend. We know this is a short timeline, but the release this weekend includes necessary updates to resolve the inaccuracies in ISBE attendance reporting outlined in this news article. We feel it’s prudent we release these changes as soon as possible so districts can report updated attendance by the P-EBT deadline on 3/25/2021.
For further guidance, we’ve created a brief knowledge base article outlining the changes.
Conflicting E-Learning Days Report
Thank you for the continued opportunity to serve you,
The Common Goal Team
