Many of us live in states that require a certain number of calendar days to fulfill as part of our homeschool. There are many different ways of keeping track of attendance should you need or want to, from paper and pencil to a software program, but they all need to have one common feature: you must be able to verify that your children are “attending” school.
To me that means not just circling a date on the calendar, because well anyone can do that, but also including what we did to call it a “school” day, whether that be studying our texts or a field trip etc. I’ve tackled it two separate ways.
The first year I had two parts to our attendance system. I had a dated calendar which I simply circled the date we did a full school day and slashed it through if we did a half day. Then I had my lesson planning written on notebook pages immediately following the calendar in a binder.
This year I am combining the two and keeping it electronically. Saved as a Word document I have the date, the numbered day of attendance, the subjects with texts and lessons we are working on, all in a table. I can fit about seven school days per page.
I prefer this new method I’m using as I don’t have extra paper clutter as I did with the earlier method. Easily printable if needed and backed up on a flash drive, there is always a copy of it. Also without having to flip through many papers, with the search feature software programs offer, I can easily find a certain day or lesson we worked on without much problem.
Share with us how you keep attendance. Do you combine it with a recount of your days or do you keep those aspects separate?
Photo credit Joe Lanman
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I use one of the calendar formats available at donnayoung.org — print one out and highlight the days I am setting aside specifically for school. I use it to set reasonable dates for our quarterly reviews, and to establish broad goals for "what will be accomplished when." I don't touch it again unless there is a significant change. A highlighted, blank space means "present." They'd have to be pretty sick — e.g. unable to get out of bed, or hospitalized — to qualify as a "sick day," since we would still be reading together and completing simple projects, even if they were under the weather. There are lots of reasons why we may be behind or ahead in any given subject on any given day, but we get it all done in the end. My lesson plans reflect this; my attendance record does not. The children are, of course, *always* present.
I don't attach my planbook directly to the attendance record, though the dates in my planbook do correspond to the dates on the attendance record. If the school district requests a copy of my attendance record, I am required to submit it; but they'd need a pretty good reason to ask for it. I'm not one to volunteer more than is required, and a request like that would certainly be reviewed by the good attorneys at HSLDA. In any case, my daily lessons (which are "real and they are spectacular" :) ) are not subject to review, and I wouldn't invite them to be, except under the direst of circumstances (think Charleton Heston's "cold dead hands"):)
In truth, I am already pretty self-conscious about what I am required to turn in (an IHIP–Individualized Home Instruction Plan, four quarterly reviews in which I certify that we have met or exceeded the required number of hours and detail what was covered in each subject, and an end of the year evaluation). They're professional, detailed and thorough, and I expect they garner a few eye rolls at the district office, to tell you the truth. They don't need my daily lesson plans too, and I'm not required to share them.
So no, I don't attach further "proof" to my attendance record. It's only there to assist me in organizing our school year, and to provide legal cover if needed; no more, no less.
I don't mean to sound harsh or adversarial — acutally, I mean my tone to be humorous, which may not read as intended! — but I think it's important not to allow ourselves to be taken advantage of. I live in a pretty heavily-regulated state. I don't think it's good for my family or for homeschooling in general for me to set a precedent that may end up making it harder for others to come after me. Woe betide us when they *require* daily proof of what was covered directly on the attendance record … and then get to decide if what we covered was "enough" to qualify as a full "school day."
Just sayin'.
I use edu-track. Usually, I enter my lessons ahead of time, but I like that I can also enter them in after the fact. It also has an attendance feature. While I am not required to turn in lesson plans either, I do keep detailed ones in my records because I am very big on "just in case."
On edu-track, one click on a calendar marks attendance for that day, or you can automatically update it and the program will mark attendance based on your lesson plans. Easy!
Our state is not very strict (at all) with what they require from us.
Last year, I just bought a combo lesson plan book/attendance book. So, I kept attendance in the front and put my plans in the back. This year, I'm doing my plans on the computer, so I haven't decided how to keep my attendance. Maybe still in an attendance book from the store. They are only a few dollars, and I'm used to it.
I just fill out the monthly attendance forms from our state homeschool group's website and send them in to my county office. I don't save my lesson plans or any supporting documents to prove that we had school on the days I said we did because my state doesn't require anything like that…and, if they did, they might not like my answer. You ought to see the way they spend some of their days that they call "school days." ;-)
Oregon doesn't require any attendance. Also my son is not 7 yet, so I don't have to tell them anything until next year.
My state doesn't require an attendance report, so I don't keep records. I do make lesson plans for myself and we notebook as we learn (no text books for us except for math). Early on we lived in Georgia where attendance reports were required. They sent a form and I filled it in and sent it back to them. Ridiculous!! We are always learning!!
I use Homeschool Tracker to set up my year (it's 180 days for GA). I just enter my start date, holidays, & date requirement. Then it tells me if I'm over or under, I am usually under so I start adding days.
Then I put these "off" days in Google Calendar. :)
I made my own attendance/lesson planner. I have the total number of days required for my cover, 1-180, in a spreadsheet. I have half the pages as lesson plans/goals and the facing page as accomplishments/lessons done. My cover needs days of attendance on a monthly basis so I have a place where I keep a running total of days for the month. I also have a place I write down the date. It really works best for our home school because we are free to have school or not and not really get behind in any area. We just pick up where we left off on the next day we have school. I can change to a unit study on a whim and not miss anything I thought I was going to do. I just highlight or circle the last goal done and redo my plans on the fly. It helps when the days are cold and short and we just need a change. We may throw a unit on bowling in the mix for two or three days then top it off with a day of bowling!