The accuracy of the Attendance Works Extract is dependent on the data in the Aeries system. The Attendance Works Extract accesses many tables and they need to be as accurate as possible.
Setup Data:
- Location (LOC) – inactive schools and schools tagged as DNR are not selected on the Schools tab by default
- Absent Code (ABS) – absent codes that are set as Excused Absences, Unexcused Absences, Unverified Absences and Suspensions will be included in various columns in the Attendance Works Student extract
- Calendar (DAY) – the calendar is used to determine the default extract dates and to evaluate which students and related records to include in the counts. When the extracts are run at the District level the District (School 0) calendar should be set up. If there is no District (School 0) calendar the extract results may not be accurate.
- Transfer (XRF) – the code values that are mapped in the XRF table for the CALPADS Primary Enrollment and CALPADS English Learner codes are used when evaluating the student records.
- Options (OPT) – saves the schools selected in the Schools tab
- File Location Information (FLI) – saves the file processing and creation information
Student Data:
- Students (STU) – active and inactive students are included. The students need to be enrolled in a school selected on the Schools tab, and also need to be enrolled during the extract date range indicated on the Options tab. In addition, only student data records that have no value in the Attendance Program (STU.SP) field or that have an Attendance Program that is considered a Primary Enrollment will be included in the extract.
- Attendance (ATT) – the Attendance table is evaluated along with the Absent Code (ABS) table and the Calendar (DAY) table to determine the Days Present, Excused Absences, Unexcused Absences, and Days Suspended counts. The All Day field in the Attendance table is used to determine the various attendance counts, period attendance fields are not evaluated. The Unverified Absence code is counted along with the Unexcused Absence codes to create the Unexcused Absences total in the extract.
- Special Ed (CSE) – special education records must have an Enter Date (CSE.ED), a Primary Disability (CSE.DI), and the Exit Date (CSE.XD) must either be NULL or within the school year. Students with records that meet these criteria will have a “YES” in the IEP column.
- Free and Reduced (FRE) – free and reduced records must have an Enter Date anytime within the school year. If a student has a Free or Reduced record anytime during the school year they are tagged with a “YES” in the Free and Reduced column
- Letters (LET and LTL) – the Letters (LET) table is used to identify which letters are sent as a Truancy notification and which letters are sent as an excessive absence notification. The Letter Log (LTL) table is evaluated to determine if a student received one or more of these letters from the school they are enrolled in.
- Discipline (ADS and DSP) – the Disposition (DSP) table is used to determine the number of instances of suspension. In order to be counted the disposition date must be within the student’s enrollment in the school and the disposition code must begin with “SUS”.
- Programs (PGM) – this table is evaluated as a secondary method of identifying TK students. If there are no students with a -1 grade level, then the system will check students with grade = 0 to see if they have a Program Code of “185” while enrolled in the school. If so, they will be counted as a TK student.
To create the Attendance Works Extracts, click on the Create Student and Zip Code Extracts button. A red progress bar will appear at the top of the page indicating that the program is running and a “Processing” message will appear in the File Download area.
Once complete, the message will change to “Completed” and the files can be downloaded by clicking on the download icon.
Using the Extracts
Two files are created for the Attendance Works Extracts, the Student file and the Zip Code file. Both files are in a Comma-Delimited (csv) format and can be opened in Excel. In order to use the CalDATT tools provided by Attendance Works, the data in the two extract files will need to be copied and pasted into their templates.
Using Excel, select and copy the records from the Student extract …
And paste them into the District Data tab of the CalDATT template…
Repeat these steps with the Zip Code file…
The CalDATT template will automatically produce reports based on the data copied into the template.