See also: Attendance in Student Success
Why does the report in Student Success disagree with the SRI (or other) reports?
The reporting in Panorama Student Success is optimized to provide attendance data updated daily for the purpose of identifying students with attendance concerns, systemic attendance patterns and progress data to help improve attendance. Other reports such as SRI attendance reports are infrequent and intended to represent outcomes of long term trends. Due to differences in how the data are updated and summarized, results will differ somewhat. Users are encouraged to use the data in Student Success as intended, to improve student outcomes and NOT to try and replicate the summary reports found elsewhere.
How does the attendance data get into Student Success? How frequently is it updated?
Period and/or daily attendance data (absences only) which are entered in your district’s student information system (SIS) are imported each day into Student Success. Unlike all other data elements that update as changes are made in the SIS, the attendance objects are imported via a bulk request/response method that is more efficient for all systems involved.
- Daily attendance requests absences for the most recent 90 days.
- Period attendance requests data for the most recent three days.
Due to timing of updates, daily and period attendance should be up to date as of the last 24-48 hours, depending on the timing of the data flow. In addition, a second process updates the entire year's data roughly monthly by a secondary "catch up" process that cycles through the entire state. Primarily this will pick up older attendance entries that were added, deleted or changed outside of the request window ranges.
How should we be entering data into our Student Information System?
Each student information system handles attendance differently. Technical assistance is now available for districts, including a set of attendance codes and other settings that are strongly recommended to be adopted. Consistent coding of attendance and absences will support more usable and meaningful reports.
Why can’t we see any attendance data for some or all grades in Student Success?
If you see NO attendance data, the most likely causes are settings in your SIS or SIF. Start by checking that your SIF agent is set to send attendance data. If that is correct, check the settings in your SIS that define how and when the entry of period attendance generates a daily attendance record. You may need to reach out to your SIS vendor support team, if you’re uncertain about these settings.
For additional support, submit a support request in Student Success or email support_iowa@panoramaed.com. Please include the district, building, and give us a specific student example (first and last name), and dates of absences you expect to see. A screenshot of a sample student from your student information system is very helpful.
The attendance data displayed in Student Success is incorrect, what should we do?
Keep in mind that summary reporting in various systems may be calculated differently, based on different selection criteria and rules. In particular, do not expect that average daily attendance and chronic absenteeism summaries will be consistent. Start by looking at individual student daily and period absence entries. Do the dates of absences align between systems? Are the errors on older data that may not have been updated yet by the monthly catch up update cycle? Submit a support ticket, if you want to investigate differences. Please include a specific student example, including at least one or two specific entries in your SIS that don't align with what is displayed. A screenshot of the data in your SIS is very helpful.
How is attendance calculated for display in Student Success?
The attendance information displayed is based solely on data entered in the student information system. Schools calculate attendance in different ways, e.g., taking attendance during the first period for a daily attendance count or once per class period. Student Success aggregates this information to calculate an overall attendance data for each student.
- For schools sending daily attendance, that is used to calculate full day absences.
- In rare cases, for schools that do not send any daily attendance at all but only report class period/section attendance, the Panorama system will interpret 3+ period absences in a day as a full day absence.
Important note: The system identifies which days are a school day for a school based on whether there is at least one student absence reported in the school. If no student absences are entered for a day, the system will interpret it as a ‘no school’ day.
What attendance data is displayed in Student Success?
Attendance data is available on the individual student’s profile and on the School tab on both the Overview and Attendance reports. On the student's individual profile, you can view more details about their attendance, such as:
- Total percentage of days present
- How many times a student has missed a specific class period each term, plus the latest grade in the class (when available)
- Full and half day absences in a calendar view. Note: when you hover over days on the calendar, notes for additional context about what happened on that day may appear, such as “Excused Absence,” “Field Trip,” or “Doctor's Note. You may also see a fraction value if the student was absent for part of the day.
On the School tab, you can view the Attendance report. The line graph on the report shows cumulative trends in attendance data over various date ranges (year-to-date, month, week, etc.). By hovering on the graph, users can see daily attendance and compare trends against the goal (95% daily attendance) and 30-day averages. The summaries are based on full day absences, but a check box will enable the reports to also include half day absences. Below the graph, you can also view average daily attendance metrics for the previous school day by reason and grade level, as well as which students were absent, with details such as grade level, absence streak, and year-to-date absences and risk level. It is important to know that the summary numbers presented here should not be expected to match summaries found in other systems that may use different summary rules, etc.
The student’s attendance indicator on the Overview report on the Students tab, reflects the number of absences year-to-date and risk level. In this report the system tallies daily and half day absences. In other words, two half day absences will add up to one daily absence. The definition of half day and full day absence are made within the district Student Information System.
How do the reports in Student Success relate to the Iowa School Performance Profile and ESSA?
There is no direct connection to the data reports used for ESSA and the Iowa School Performance Profile (ISPP), other than that both of them are based on attendance data entered in the district student information system. The ISPP reports are based on two year old data that has been cleaned and validated carefully, with more complicated inclusion and exclusion rules for various categories of absence data. The attendance data displayed in Panorama Student Success are intended to deliver near real-time student level data to assist in finding students at risk, spotting trends, triangulating with other relevant data including grades, assessment results and behavior data. Using this data to help reduce student absenteeism should lead to improved outcomes down the road for the students as well as improved absenteeism data in future ISPP results.