Have you found a work-around in attendance to add "present-remote" or "present-online"?

Sondra Berry

We want to add an attendance present category - online. However, the system only seems to allow one present category. Have you found a way to track attendance when students are attending class but attending remotely?

Susan Ott

I am wondering the same thing...

Barbara McGinley

I know not only myself but others would like to know plans.

Shawna Khan

When I reached out to customer service regarding this last week, I was told that there was no option and that I should vote for the one that is already listed on the ideas board.  This is a pressing issue that almost all schools are going to be dealing with right now.  It should, in my opinion, be near the very top of the list of things Blackbaud needs to address quickly.  

Jamie Cross

I agree that it would be nice from someone at Blackbaud who monitors these community forums to chime in.


As far as support telling you to go vote for the idea in the idea bank: Sadly, there are a lot more than "one" idea(s) in the idea bank that are in essence asking the same thing.  I just voted for all the ones I could find

Scott Chrysler

Blackbaud was incredibly helpful and intuitive when this whole mess started in March by rapidly releasing enhancements that improved the performance and functionality of the "classroom" aspect of K12. They need to be as helpful and intuitive with this situation. This cannot be an enhancement that sits on the shelf until it receives 276 votes. Schools are opening now with students attending virtually. We need Blackbaud to respond quickly to this need. But if they want us to vote, here are the links to all of the suggestions that revolve around virtual attendance:

https://blackbaudk12.ideas.aha.io/ideas/K12OR-I-2268

https://blackbaudk12.ideas.aha.io/ideas/K12OC-I-2495

https://blackbaudk12.ideas.aha.io/ideas/K12OR-I-2265

https://blackbaudk12.ideas.aha.io/ideas/K12OC-I-2458

https://blackbaudk12.ideas.aha.io/ideas/K12OR-I-2234


Scott

Geoffrey Goodfellow

I would also like to see this feature present to give some more attendance flexibility.  However, to play devil's advocate, what is the biggest thing needing to drive the distinction between attendance in-person verus remote?  Our teachers take attendance in their classes all the time whether they are meeting in their room, on a field trip, etc.  From an educational day counting perspective, it is definitely important to know when a student was present, but for our current COVID model where we have some checking in to be present remotely and some checking to be present physically, from a record-keeping day count, is there a compelling reason to distinuish the two?   I suppose one would be an emergency where you needed records of everyone in the building or something.

Jamie Cross

From our standpoint I believe its something we want
to track for not only present or absent but in a case where a
student is struggling, to have a data point to consider whether
distance learning was a factor.

Angie Stalquist

We have the same frustration with "present" as the only option.  We want to track students who are Livestreaming so we set up a category with Live - Present, Live - Absent, Live - Tardy.  It is the same options as if they are in person but we wanted the capability of tracking them in reports, etc.. If we had just marked them absent we would not be able to delineate who was on campus versus Live Streaming.  Hope this makes sense!  Have a great day. 

Elizabeth Perron

Hi Scott Chrysler‍ and others,


Scott thank you for making it easy for others to vote for the ideas you want.  I have shared your request with my Blackbaud peers.  Since the Community is powered by peers, if anyone on this thread is contacted by Support with a work around, it would be great if you could reply to this thread and share what you learn.


Or if anyone finds their own workaround for this new way of tracking school, please also share. We know our members are a wealth of information.


On a personal note, as a mother of two middle school aged children.  I appreciate you all so much for being flexible and offering the different schooling options even if the software couldn't have seen the Corona virus coming.  


All the best,

Elizabeth

Maria Morrell

Geoffrey Goodfellow - We need to know who is present on campus for emergencies. We use Ruvna, and would like to use the Blackbaud integration with Ruvna, but it would only work well if we know who is physically on campus versus attending class (virtually or in person).  I think our solution for the 'who's on campus?' question  may be old school--while we are completing health screenings before students can come inside our building, we will be checking off a list of who is actually on campus.  It might even be basic paper and pencil!  

Kathy Hannon

So, we are doing this a bit differently - out of a need to have indicator and not sure Blackbaud will have a solution by the time school starts next week.  We created an Attendance Category of "Remote Learning" added a reason "Remote Learner", made it Excused and faculty can access, does not calculate.  When added to a student - a comment is added "Remote Learner" (teachers will not change comments for tracking purposes) When teacher sees "Remote Learner" and that student isn't in her video feed, she marks the student "Absent-Unexcused" or "Tardy."  Teachers like this option and over a gradebook notation because all students will be graded on work turned in - whether present or remote.


FYI - we are a school that is giving the parents a choice of their student attending in person or remote.

Barbara McGinley

Kathy I like that suggestion!!!

Brian Gray

We took the same approach that Kathy Hannon's school did.  We created a new category of attendance codes and added two reasons: "Present - Remote" and "Absent - Time Zone".


"Present - Remote" will help us with contact tracing.  Like many schools, the plan is that we will (eventually) have some fraction of students in the classroom with the teacher and some students attending electronically.  We will (eventually) need to distinguish those two forms of "present".  We expect that some of our younger students will come to campus even if they can't be in the classroom on a given day.  We haven't figured out how we are going to track those students throughout the day yet.


We are a boarding school, and some of our boarders are on other continents.  We have time-shifted sections of a couple of courses to accommodate students in Asia, but many students will "attend" class by watching a recording of the class meeting. "Absent - Time Zone" will be used to track those students (although I'm not quite sure exactly how).

Barbara McGinley

Thanks Brian!

Josceline Reardon

We are going to try this in our Lower School


Classroom Teacher Attendance:
On Campus Learners

#1. Attended Class

#2. LS Tardy (add comment about why)

#3. LS Absent (add comment about why)


Hybrid Learners

-AM attendance, mark Hybrid Learner option (so office knows hybrid learner) - NOTE THIS IS IN A TARDY TYPE- we are using the system backwards

-If hybrid learner checks in/attends,  Change to Attended Class

-If hybrid learner does not check in/attend, Change to Hybrid Learner Absent

Amanda Hagood

In the most recent release an option for virtual attendance was added!


On a similar note, has anyone found a way to easily indicate to teachers which students are remote learners in their roster and/or when they are taking attendance? Support suggested a custom field on the contact card, but the means teachers clicking in to the contact card and they can't see this when taking attendance. Another suggestion was putting "Remote" in the suffix field, but this also doesn't appear in attendance...


Thanks,

Amanda

Jamie Cross

Our hack was to add " - DL" to any student's last name who is "Distance Learning"

Sheila Long

The recent update is helpful but not enough. Our state law mandates that I provide a Present count on my report card and transcripts. The new Attendance Type (Virtual) doesn't allow for calculations. If only BB could add that piece I think it would solve my issue. Or allow comments when marking the student Present.

Lorrin Saliba

The add was a step in the general direction however it is useless if we cannot report on it.   If the teacher marks them as Report Learner it is considered present.

We have in person classes for all students unless you are in a medically necessary pool of remote learners or you have to quarantine for exposure.  Those students are on a pre-approved administrative only list.  We suddenly have students that just decided to "stay home" with a sore throat but feel well enough to login to 2nd period. The teacher records them as "Remote Learner" because "Jonny is online" but the front office needs to know because they are not in school and didn't call in following the proper attendance guidelines.  


This has been a pet peeve of mine for a while but now its problematic with the addition of the "Remote Learner - Present" category.  There are no ways of creating reports or daily lists for present students. I know that this is in its beginning stages but without the ability to cross reference present (in school) vs. present (remote - approved) vs. present (remote - cause we felt like it) it is useless.


The system considers and records and reports only on the existence of an absent code.  I have found NO WAY to report on present learners.  If there is a way to report on present learners and now especially the present "remote" ones, that would help out tremendously!