Average Daily Attendance (ADA) Business Rules

Definition: Percent of total days attended out of total instructional days

Periodicity (time period): Ongoing - calculates as year-to-date (cumulative)

Possible Configurations:

Admin User: None

Schoolzilla Support: None

District and School Metric Calculation:

Notes

1. Students who had an enrollment and attendance record in the current academic year, including exited students.
2. A school’s attendance metrics only include students’ attendance data from when they attended that school.
3. If a student is dual/concurrently enrolled, the student’s attendance is used for their primary school’s attendance metrics.
4. The student records that are used to calculate the district attendance include all attendance the student has earned in the district, not just what was earned in the current or selected school. See below logic.
   • The metric on District Profile/Our Schools uses a student's attendance in the district.
   • The metric on School Profile uses a student's attendance earned in that school (including students who are no longer enrolled, but were enrolled anytime that year)
   • The metric on Our Students/Student Profile shows a student's attendance in the district (not just the current or selected school).

Example:
A school has 2 students. As of 9/10/19, The number of possible instructional days are 10.
Attendance of each student as of 9/10/19:

• Student 1: attended 10 out of 10 possible instructional days
• Student 2: attended 5 out of 10 possible instructional days

Therefore as of 9/10/19, the total number of days attended by students with attendance records is 15; the number of possible instructional days is 10, and the number of students with attendance records is 2.

Student Level Metric Calculation:

rounded to one decimal point

The metric on Our Students/Student Profile shows a student's attendance in the district (not just the current or selected school). Please see the Chronic Absence business rules article for more information.

Source: Student information system. For PowerSchool, Schoolzilla generates student attendance based on the FTE and Attendance Conversion Item settings.

Update frequency: Nightly for attendance data in the last 60 days. Additional days can be refreshed through a request to Schoolzilla support.

Note:

• This metric may not match your state reporting calculation due to the fact Schoolzilla incorporates all ever enrolled students in the school year in this metric. Schoolzilla considers a student to have been ever enrolled, even he/she was enrolled for only one day.
• Attendance rate for a specific day can be found using the calendar icon on the District Profile or School Profile. In other words, the calendar icon shows the daily attendance rate.
• The ADA metric may differ slightly from the absence rate metric and/or student count of absences as ADA leverages attendance settings in your student information system that may allow for partial attendance, or be based on periods present or absent (ex. attendance conversion items in PowerSchool), while the absence rate metric specifically uses the day-level attendance code populated by the SIS.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Withdrawn Students: Do the data include students who have been withdrawn from the district?

Average daily attendance includes all students who were ever enrolled in the district for that given year and who had an attendance record. The metrics do not exclude students who were enrolled for fewer than X days. The rationale for including students who withdrew is so that you can still get an accurate picture of how the district or school is doing on attendance.

Transfer Students: If students transfer to another school within the district, does the data transfer to the next school or does it remain at the previous school and then a student receives a new attendance rate at the new school? How are the attendance rates rolled up/aggregated if students attend multiple schools within the district?

The district average daily attendance rate includes the student’s entire attendance history within the district for that year. The school average daily attendance rate includes only that student’s attendance earned at the school. If a student has a dual enrollment at two schools within the district at the same point in time, then the primary school is credited with the attendance results.

For the monthly attendance data, is it cumulative from the beginning of the year or is it for each distinct month?

The attendance metrics are cumulative from the beginning of the year. A student’s attendance rate is calculated as a sum of the student’s attendance days out of the sum of all days enrolled in the district up to that given month. For average daily attendance, the April value, for example, represents the sum of all attendance days out of the sum of all enrollment days for the year.