Attendance Recovery Tracking

  • Updated on Sep 30, 2025
  • Published on Jul 1, 2025
  • 5 minute(s) read
  • Jevon Baird
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AR Tracking Requirement Summary

  • 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 before or after school, during weekends, or on intersession breaks. 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).

  • LEAs must report in 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 attendance must be reported during the Principal Apportionment cycle, through the Principal Apportionment Data Collection (PADC). Reported by grade span at P-1, P-2 and Annual.

  • 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)).

  • The local educational agency (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 teacher of each AR classroom must document each student's participation time. This may be done by tracking participation time in hourly increments. Daily participation time tracking is appropriate if AR sessions meet the minimum daily minute requirements.

  • Participation must sum to the applicable minimum daily minutes to generate a whole day AR ADA. 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 average daily attendance (ADA) for the AR attendance.

  • 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.

  • In-person instruction is a condition of apportionment. Excludes long term IS and non-classroom students.

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

  • ELP and AR can be offered concurrently (if the requirements of both programs are met).

SchoolWise AR Tracking Guide

  • SchoolWise has added the capability to manually record the total number of Attendance Recovery (AR) attendance days in the desktop app Student Forms. Once a minimum day requirement is met for AR, LEA may record 1 ADA attendance day.

  • Rosters can be setup in SchoolWise for tracking AR attendance in the Desktop Attendance form or in the Web Attendance form. To create an AR class roster for tracking attendance, you must create an academic course section with positive attendance enabled and enroll students. See below for additional guidance.

Setup AR Attendance Tracking

  • If you plan on operating an AR program only on in-session dates (before school or after school), 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 12-month calendar track. 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).

  • When creating an AR class roster, note that “Positive Attendance” must be enabled in both the Course Section Defaults tab and in each course section. When 'Positive Attendance' is used, students are ‘considered absent unless marked present'. When taking attendance, mark students present (when present) or leave the attendance record blank (Not Taken) when absent. AR courses should only use positive attendance tracking (considered absent unless marked present). Negative attendance recording could lead to potential audit compliance issues.

A) Setup daily AR participation time tracking:

  • This attendance tracking method can be used to record a full day of AR participation time if the AR session meets the minimum daily minute requirements.

  • 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 12-month 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 12-month calendar track (for taking attendance on any day enabled in the ELP 12-month calendar track).

B) Setup hourly AR participation time tracking:

  • This attendance tracking method can be used to record hourly increments of AR participation time.

  • 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 12-month calendar track). In the course section defaults tab, enable positive attendance and set the default minutes for the class. Note:

  • Create course 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 12-month calendar track (for taking attendance on any day enabled in the ELP 12-month calendar track).

  • If fixed length AR course sections are used, the default minutes for each section can be used for tracking participation time (Present = X minutes).

  • If variable length AR course sections are used, please contact SchoolWise support to enable check-in/check-out time tracking function in the SchoolWise web attendance forms. Please provide your default start/end times for each course section. Click here for more information regarding attendance time tracking.

Additional 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.

Reference