Thursday, January 20, 2022

Regarding Attendance

Last Monday I had this email exchange with the school secretary who is also the attendance clerk. (It's a small school. All the clerking-type stuff is done by one person.) 

Secretary: hi Elizabeth, did you the attendance today in AERIES? or was everyone present???

Me: I did input attendance, or at least I thought I did. [Logan] and [Sushi] were absent.

S: Ok, thanks. [Logan] was put in, but not [Sushi]. I just put him for absent today.

Me: Weird. I must have run the cursor over [Sushi's] absence and it blanked it out. Oh well. Thanks for fixing it.

S: I know what happened. [Flash's] mom called and said that she got a phone call that he was absent and he wasn't

So I think instead of [Sushi] you hit [Flash]

I'm taking his absence out of [Flash]. If that is not correct let me know, but since you said that you only had 2 absences I think this is correct. Please check your attendance if it is correct.

Me: Yes, that must have been what happened. [Flash] was present. Only [Sushi] and [Logan] were absent. (This won't be the first time I miskeyed an absence. I can see how I could have done that.)

So, yeah, um, I totally marked the wrong student absent. I've done this sort of thing before. I'll hit the absent key for a student above or below the student I meant to mark absent. But in this case, Flash is near the top of the list while Sushi is closer to the end. There's like four students between the two of them.

How I made that mistake, I have no idea. 

(And I know it was me because I had written it on my paper copy of the attendance that way as well.)

Sushi was out of school all week. He sent me an email saying he had the flu. And he was requesting a Covid test. We got official Covid contact notification that Monday, but later I found out it was a different student, and that student (who is not in my class) didn't necessarily have it, but was a close contact of someone who did.

Ah, the joys of pandemic attendance.

14 comments:

  1. I read about a student strike at the NYC high school I went to, over COVID concerns. Going online to check it out, I ended up reading a Reddit thread initiated by someone who said he was a student there, and described a recent day there. What an absolute nightmare he described, including a horrific description of pandemic attendance from the student viewpoint. A number of respondents said they were teachers, and were praising the post.

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    1. I think I saw that post. It went viral. I don't have that issue as I have a very small class at a very small school, but I hear the high schools are dealing with similar issues. Why they don't just go remote or hybrid, I have no idea.

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    2. Drew is a permanent sub in a high school. He's been running all over the building lately to provide coverage, there are too many teachers out and they can't find enough per diem subs. And a friend of mine who teaches in a middle school is tired of being the mask police.

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    3. I'm pretty sure that would be me too if I hadn't happened into this particular gig.

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  2. It's one of those errors that you just make for no discernable reaeson.

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  3. Honest mistake and can easily be done. It got corrected which is the main part. Hopefully Covid does not spread throughout your school.

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    1. Ah... Sigh. Tune in next week for how Covid ravaged the class. This week has been fun (/sarcasm).

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  4. Our school year starts on 31 Jan, so only 1 week away. We still don't know what's happening - hopefully an announcement today. They are saying they want to do a monitoring system so all staff and kids tested with a RAT twice a week, but of course they don't have that man RATs on hand at the moment. They want to avoid online learning so are discussing options. Gah, I wish they'd just make a decision so we know what to expect!

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  5. I have been known to be working on my program at work and move that curser over something, losing stuff or not entering what I have put in. Crazy.

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    1. But apparently that's not what I did. I just straight up clicked the wrong student. *shakes head*

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  6. This covid needs to be over. But it here and we will be living with it for anther year.
    Coffee is on and stay safe

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  7. All's well that ends well, I hope. Good it got straightened out.

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