Panorama Student Success offers several reports centered on absenteeism, which are available on the left hand menu at the school level view or above. This article is about the Recently Absent Students report. To learn about other absenteeism reports, visit: Overview of Attendance Reports Available in Student Success
Attendance/Absenteeism reports in Student Success are not directly related to the Chronic Absenteeism calculations that are part of the Iowa School Performance Profile. These reports are simply tools intended to help leaders track and respond to attendance needs, which will impact the outcomes in the ISPP calculations at the end of the year.
The Recently Absent Students Report highlights students who have missed 3 of the past 10 school days. The purpose is to identify the students who have missed school lately, making it easier to spot emergent needs and respond to them.
Where is the attendance data from?
It’s important to understand that the data driving these reports comes from the raw daily attendance data as entered in the student information system. It is intended as a tool for looking at potential attendance issues and is not directly connected to any other attendance reporting or accountability. Because this is based on raw, next day data, the data reported may not match up exactly with other data summaries.
For more information on the attendance data integration into Panorama, visit: Frequently Asked Questions: Attendance in Student Success
Navigating the report
For users with access to multiple locations, click the drop-down just below the report header to select a different location.
Filters and View By
Use the View By options and Filters on the left side of the report to explore the data in various ways. The report defaults to View By > Grade Level. The visual displayed below is set to View By > Absence Reason. Use these views alone and in conjunction with filters to explore for patterns in the data that might lead to new insights on attendance barriers.
Graphs scroll horizontally, if there are more elements to display than will fit on the graph.
Drill down to data
From the school-level report, click on the grade level (or All grade levels) on the table below the chart to drill down to the Recently absent students by school report and view attendance details of the students represented.
From the district-level report, clicking on the name of the school building in the table below the chart doesn’t take you to the school-level report shown above but rather takes you to the student-level attendance list.
In the student attendance details (Recently absent by school), click on the headers to sort or apply filters on the left menu to explore data in different ways. You can also quickly create attendance interventions for individual students using the student’s Actions menu.
Return to the original report view by clicking on the navigation arrow next to the header.
Using the data
The best use of the Recently Absent Report is at the building level. At the district level, aggregated views of these reports may be helpful at times but some unusual data displays should be expected. It will not be available to Classroom Users. Be aware that both unexcused and excused data are included, the absenteeism reports in Student Success include all absences entered in the district’s SIS.
Use this report to identify early signs of potential chronic absenteeism, and to check on students who are missing school to understand why and how to best support the student’s education. Early intervention is critical to reducing absenteeism and improving student outcomes. The data may also be used to reveal patterns of absences that can be addressed more systematically.