How to Take Attendance

1. How to Take Attendance and why it matters!

2. Attendance is Important! • Most of our students come to the US on an F-1 (student) visa • This means that their sole purpose for being in the US is to study • The Department of Homeland Security’s website tells students on an F-1 visa that in order to maintain their visa status they must: • “Attend and pass all your classes”1 • “take a full course of study each term”1 • “not drop a class without speaking first with your DSO”1 (Designated School Official) • For our program, a full course of study means 20 hours of classes per week • If a student is attending less than 20 hours of their classes per week, they are not fulfilling their visa requirements 1http://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/students/maintain-your-status

3. Our Attendance Policy As stated in our Student Handbook: “Teachers must record student absences in the student database daily. The office will review student attendance records continually throughout the term. Students who have an attendance rate of below 75% will be sent a warning email. If the attendance rate at the end of the term is still below the required 75%, the student will be put on probation. This means that if the attendance rate is not better for the next term, the student may: • not be registered in the SAL program again • not be recommended by SAL if they apply for transfer to another school. • lose their F-1 visa status, which means they cannot stay in the U.S”

4. How We Check Attendance • First, we review who has been taking attendance and if anyone is behind using these lovely reports • If you are behind or you haven’t started taking attendance, you will be getting an email from Megan! • We retrieve a list of students with poor attendance and send them an email (students with very low attendance will be asked to come in to the office)

5. What Students Receive Dear [first name], We want you to succeed at IG/SAL and we are concerned about your attendance in your IG/SAL classes. We've noticed that you have recently missed one or more class meetings in the following course(s) for Fall 2013 Session 2: [class].   You need to have good attendance and earn good grades in all of your classes in order to comply with IG/SAL's policies. Please go to class every day and talk to your teachers about the classes you have missed. If you are now regularly attending classes, you do not need to take any action. If you are sick, please contact the iGateways Office immediately. If you are no longer enrolled in, or you recently added the classes listed above, please disregard this email. If you arrived late to iGateways for this term, you are not excused from the classes that you missed. You will need to have good attendance in your courses for the rest of the term. If you would like to speak to someone about your attendance or if you are having problems, please reply to this email or call the IG Office to make an appointment to speak with an advisor. For F-1 (student) visa holders: If you are on a student (F-1) visa, you also need to have good attendance and earn good grades in all of your classes to maintain your visa status. If your class attendance does not improve and you do not speak to someone at the IG Office, your SEVIS record could be terminated and you would be required to return to your home country. For students on probation: If you are currently "on probation" at iGateways because of poor grades or attendance, you will need to earn C's or better and have 75% attendance or higher in all of your classes in order to lift your probation. If you fail to meet these requirements, you may not be re-admitted to International Gateways. For students who entered the US on a student visa, this may create problems with their immigration status. Thank you. International Gateways Office Academics Department (408)-924-2660

6. Why it Matters • We are responsible for knowing where our students are • If a student is not attending class regularly and something happens to them, we could get in trouble • If a student stops attending class, we have the choice to terminate their SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) record, which is how ICE keeps track of students • Once the SEVIS record is terminated, the student is no longer allowed to remain in the US • SEVIS termination is very serious and could prevent a student from receiving a student visa in the future • We want to avoid SEVIS termination, so it’s important to catch (and hopefully stop) attendance problems early on

7. How to Take Attendance • Attendance must be entered for all classes at the end of every week • Log in to http://130.65.23.17/ta/ (ask someone if you don’t have the logon information) Click here

8. Check for correct term Select your name and click “go”

9. Select the current session or both • Find the class you’d like to enter attendance for and click “go”

10. Click “add multiple Days” • Choose the days of the week for your class • Select the start date • The number of weeks should be 8 • All ATP courses should be 2 hours • Give the course a title if you’d like • Click “Make Entries”

11. If no dates show up, click on “Right” (this goes to dates that are later than the current date) • To mark a student as absent, click on the “v” next to their name for that date

12. Enter “0” if the student was absent, or 1.5 or 1 if the student was absent • You can mark the student as “Tardy” or “Excused” (the office and the students do not see these), then click save • After you enter all of the absences/tardies, click “load” • This will automatically load 2 hours for every other student (NOT the ones that you’ve already entered) • If you prefer, you can click “load” first, then go back and change the students who were absent/late

13. Voilà! Your attendance is entered! If you need help, you can always ask your fellow teachers or Megan.

14. Important Information • We send warning emails to students based on the attendance percentage in each of their courses • If you are behind on your attendance, a student may get an email when they don’t need one OR they won’t get an email when they need one • DO NOT enter attendance ahead of time then go back and change it—this will mess up the attendance percentages • If a student missed a few classes but is now currently attending, they do not need to worry about warning emails that they receive • There are often between 70 and 100 students on the poor attendance email list—it’s impossible to double check attendance for each student • We are relying on teachers to enter attendance correctly • If a student tells you they are going to be absent, please relay that information to us • If someone is not showing up on your roster or they are on your roster but you know they aren’t in your class, please let Kim know ASAP! DO NOT “hide” a student from your attendance roster without notifying us first • Please notify Megan, Amy, and Kim if a student is frequently late or absent so that we can look into the situation.

15. Questions? • If you have questions about SEVIS, visas, or immigration, you can ask our Admissions Coordinator, SiminMulugeta, in the office • If you need help entering your attendance, ask a colleague or come see Megan (make an appointment first) • If you have ANY doubts about your roster, please contact Kim for 100-650 classes or Liz for 700-900 classes ASAP