New Attendance Reporting Procedures for Secondary Schools
Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board wants all students to feel connected to their classmates, their teachers, and their school.
On Thursday, March 11, 2021, HWDSB made changes to its attendance reporting procedures for secondary schools to accompany changes to the adaptive model for Semester 2. This updated practice ensures consistency, open communication with parents/guardians, and easy contact tracing.
We expect all students to be present and engaged at the start of each period, morning and afternoon. Unless a student over 18 or a parent/guardian calls in the absence, all absences will be considered unexplained, and the household will get an absence call. This includes students expected to be physically present in schools, but logging into the check-in. They are still considered absent because they are expected to be in school that day. This is crucial for contact tracing for confirmed or potential COVID-19 cases.
Please refer to the following charts to see how secondary student attendance is reported for the morning and afternoon periods:
Morning Periods
| Students are present when they: | Students are marked absent when they: | Students are late when they: |
| · Attend on their in-person day;
· Connect/check-in on their home-learning day. |
· Do not attend on their in-person day;
· Do not connect/check-in on their home-learning day. |
· Arrive in their in-person class after attendance has been taken;
· Connect/check-in on their home learning day after attendance has been taken. |
Afternoon Periods
| Students are present when they: | Students are marked absent when they: | Students are late when they: |
| · Are connected and ready to learn at the start of the period. | · Are not connected to the Teams meeting. | · Arrive at their Teams meeting after attendance has been taken. |
Updated on Thursday, March 18, 2021.