Attendance Recovery Tracking

AR Reference

• Instructional Time and Attendance Accounting: https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/it/

• Attendance Recovery: https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/it/aarecovery.asp

• Guidance on Executing Attendance Recovery Programs: https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/it/aarecoveryguide.asp

AR Tracking Requirement Summary

• The following summary is advisory in nature. It is not intended to cover in detail every statutory requirement and exception, nor should it be relied upon as the authority for instructional time and attendance accounting. Refer to CDE documentation for reference.

• Refer to CALPADS Update Flash #305 for more information regarding the New Data Collections for Attendance Recovery Program and Expanded Learning Programs.

• Beginning in 2025-2026 fiscal year, school districts, county offices of education and classroom-based charter schools may choose to offer an Attendance Recovery program to eligible students enrolled in classroom-based programs. The AR program is an optional program for students in grades TK−12, that LEAs may provide to enable students to recoup absences for the purposes of average daily attendance (ADA) apportionment. ADA recovery is capped at the fewer of 10 days per student or the student’s total absences for the fiscal year (July 1 - June 30). An AR program may only operate outside of the regular school day (before or after school), or on weekend or intersession days (EC Section 46211(b)(1)).

• In-person instruction is a condition of apportionment. AR excludes students enrolled in non-classroom-based programs, a non-classroom-based charter school, or a charter school that serves pupils pursuant to EC Section 47612.5. AR recovery excludes students continually enrolled in independent study for more than 15 schooldays (EC Section 46211(g)(1) and (2)).

• The LEA must track and report attendance from participation in an AR program separately from attendance generated during the regular school day (EC Section 46211(d)(3)). The student’s participation time can be documented in daily or hourly increments, as appropriate to the duration of the AR sessions offered. A student may accrue AR participation time in hourly increments over multiple sessions or multiple days to meet the applicable minimum daily minute requirement, after which the LEA may claim average daily attendance (ADA) for the AR attendance.

• A day of attendance for apportionment is generated by a student once they have participated in an AR program for the minimum daily minutes that apply to the student under EC Section 46211(e)(1).

• An individual student cannot generate more than one day of attendance for any calendar day of participation in an AR program (EC Section 46211(d)(1)).

• Students may “bank” AR days if participation time in AR is accrued before a student is absent. This includes attending AR programs in the summer prior to the beginning of the academic school year.

• AR does not replace/modify Saturday School (the existing method to claim ADA for past absences).

• Absences due to conditions that legally exclude a student from school (e.g. suspensions,      lack of immunization records) cannot be made up through either AR or Saturday School.

• If an absence is recovered for ADA purposes (via an Attendance Recovery program or Saturday School), the original absence record and reason need to be retained per CDE guidelines. The absence records are required by CALPADS for proper chronic absenteeism calculations and must be included in the CALPADS EOY STAS file. The original absence record and reason is also needed for SARB/Truancy reporting.

• LEAs must report in the CALPADS EOY submission (STAS file) the total number of Attendance Recovery days (up to 10) for each participating student for the fiscal school year (July 1 - June 30). This data will be used to calculate an alternate chronic absenteeism rate that will be posted on DataQuest.

• AR ADA attendance must be reported during the Principal Apportionment cycle, through the Principal Apportionment Data Collection (PADC). Make-up attendance generated through AR is included in the regular ADA totals at P-1, P-2, and Annual. It is also reported on a separate line for informational purposes. When reporting attendance to the PADC web app, an LEA may only claim AR ADA for absences that the student accrued in the complete months of attendance being reported.

SchoolWise AR Tracking Guide

SchoolWise has created a new Attendance Recovery form to record Attendance Recovery ADA days for PADC and CALPADS STAS reporting purposes. The new AR form is located in the desktop app ‘Students-Documents-Forms’ tab since the records need to be school-year specific (academic school year).

Setup AR Attendance Tracking

Class rosters can be setup in SchoolWise for tracking AR attendance in the Desktop Attendance form or Web Attendance form. Since participation is optional for AR courses, use positive attendance tracking (students are considered absent unless marked present). When creating a class roster for tracking AR participation time, “Positive Attendance” should be enabled in both the Course Section Defaults tab and in each course section. When taking attendance, mark students present (when present) or leave the attendance record blank (Not Taken) when absent. See below for additional course setup guidance.

Step1: Determine when AR will be offered.

• If you plan on operating an AR program only on in-session dates (before school or after school) during the academic school year, the regular ADA calendar track can be used to take attendance on in-session weekdays.

• If you plan on operating an AR program on a non-in-session date, please contact SchoolWise support to setup an alternate ELP 365 day extended calendar track for the fiscal school year. Please provide the specific dates AR will be offered. This will allow you to take attendance on in-session weekdays and non-in-session dates (holiday, intersession, weekend, etc).

Step 2: Determine how AR participation time will be tracked.

Consider the minimum AR participation time required per day of ADA (as shown below).

Option A) Setup daily AR attendance tracking:

• Daily participation tracking can be used if the AR session duration meets the minimum daily minute requirement in a calendar day. Ex. Present = 1 day of AR participation = 1 day of ADA.

• Create a course for ‘Attendance Recovery Days’ using the Courses form and Courses tab (do not select the ADA Grade Levels tab). Use these Course Details: Grade Range = Not Applicable, Credits  = 0,  Marking System = None, Course State Code (CBEDS Code) = 6012, and set the Course Term to Full Year (if using the regular ADA calendar track) or AR Year (if using the alternate ELP 365 day extended calendar track). In the course section defaults tab, enable positive attendance and set the default minutes for the class.

• Create sections as needed. Enable positive attendance and set the default minutes for each section. Use Period 9 for these course sections. Set the section Schedule Term to use the regular ADA calendar track (for taking attendance on in-session weekdays only) or the alternate ELP 365 day extended calendar track (for taking attendance on any day enabled in the alternate ELP 365 day extended calendar track).

Option B) Setup hourly AR attendance tracking:

• Hourly participation time tracking can be used to track accumulated AR participation time in hourly increments. A student may accrue time in hourly increments over multiple sessions or multiple days to meet the applicable minimum daily minute requirement, after which the LEA may claim 1 day of AR participation. AR participation time must sum to the applicable minimum daily minutes to generate a whole day of AR ADA. AR participation time may be accumulated in hourly increments, but not in minutes or fractions of an hour. Any AR participation time documented in increments of less than one hour does not count toward meeting the required instructional time for AR. Ex. 1-59 min = 0 hours, 60-119 min = 1 hour, 120-179 min = 2 hours, 180-239 min = 3 hours, 240-299 min = 4 hours.

• If fixed length AR sessions are used, the default minutes (full-hour increments) for each section can be used for tracking participation time. Ex. Present = X hours (where  X = the scheduled course section duration).

• If variable length AR sessions are used, the check-in/check-out time tracking function can be  used to track actual participation time. Please contact SchoolWise support to enable check-in/check-out time tracking function in the SchoolWise web attendance forms (this function is not available in the desktop attendance forms). Click here for more information regarding attendance time tracking.

• Create a course for ‘Attendance Recovery Hours’ using the Courses form and Courses tab (do not select the ADA Grade Levels tab). Use these Course Details: Grade Range = Not Applicable, Credits  = 0,  Marking System = None, Course State Code (CBEDS Code) = 6012, and set the Course Term to Full Year (if using the regular ADA calendar track) or AR Year (if using the alternate ELP 365 day extended calendar track). In the course section defaults tab, enable positive attendance and set the default minutes (full-hour increments) for the class.

• Create course sections as needed. Enable positive attendance and set the default minutes (full-hour increments) for each section. Use Period 9 for these course sections. Set the section Schedule Term to use the regular ADA calendar track (for taking attendance on in-session weekdays only) or the alternate ELP 365 day extended calendar track (for taking attendance on any day enabled in the alternate ELP 365 day extended calendar track).

Additional SchoolWise Training Resources

• Click here for general information regarding course setup.

• Click here for general information regarding course enrollment.

• Click here for general information regarding attendance recording.

AR Reporting Considerations

• Identify which course section attendance records can be used for AR purposes.

• Compare banked AR participation time vs absent records before you can claim an AR day for ADA.

• Consider transfer students. When a student transfers within the school district, the AR participation time they accrued at one school may be applied to absences that occurred at the destination school.

AR Attendance Reports: Many attendance reports just capture present/absent records. Some reports capture time (ex. Hourly Positive Attendance). Tracking eligible accumulated hourly participation time can be challenging. The following special attendance reports have been created to only capture full hours and sum the accumulated hours for AR purposes:

• Desktop: Attendance Recovery Calculation Totals w/ADA Absent

• Desktop: Attendance Recovery Calculation w/ADA Absent

• Web: Attendance Recovery Calculation By Course

• Web: Attendance Recovery Calculation Whole School

Note: The Desktop Attendance Recovery Calculation reports use the defined course section minutes (scheduled session length). These reports do not capture the actual web attendance check-in/check-out time tracking data (use the web reports for that).

AR ADA Reports: The following special desktop reports have been created to capture the AR form data:

• Attendance Recovery ADA List Alpha - This Year

• Attendance Recovery ADA Totals - This Year