I TA'd in the attendance office at my high school back in the day.
The city's tracking of student attendance only lasted a portion of the year or a portion of each quarter.
During those times, much more effort went into calling the homes of missing students and finding out why they were not showing up to class.
I remember asking about why all the calls were happening or not happening and it was sort of quietly explained by the staffer: measurement of attendance affected how the school was being evaluated by the district. Presumably, budget was hooked to it in some way.
I didn't make any waves about it because "working" in this office was super powerful and the staffer always brought in cookies for us. Amazing gig.
This is a plot point of the season of The Wire set in the school system. In Baltimore, it is definitely tied to funding--schools get per-pupil funding, but students have to actually be in attendance a certain percentage of the first six weeks of school in order to count for the funding formula.
In California, schools get paid on daily attendance. I believe it would be considered fraud to not take daily attendance. They suspended this during the heart of the pandemic but it came back last fall. Because daily attendance is down relative to pre pandemic, Public schools are facing a significant revenue gap (5-10% is typical)
In contrast, Michigan Public K-12 schools take attendance on specified Count Days to account for the number of students they serve to determine state funding. Fall count day is the 1st Wednesday in October and represents 90% of state funding. Spring count day is the 2nd Wednesday in February and represents 10% of state funding. As you might imagine, getting students in school on these days is a Big Deal.
Teachers take attendance on other days for internal use, but Count Day is special and you must not be absent!
It's almost never a snow day in early October, I only remember one February count day + snow day. They count on the next day:
> If instruction is cancelled on count day due to conditions not within the control of school authorities, with the approval of the
State Superintendent, the affected instructional programs must use the immediately following day on which the district
resumes session for count purposes
I do recall my cousins at a poor rural school in Barry county having a couple snow days on Count Wednesday, and then subsequently calling one on Thursday when it wasn't really required and another on Friday where it really wasn't required, so that counts were as high as possible on Monday. Their snow days were much more frequent due to bad roads and bad road maintenance, and their state funding was much more important compared to my wealthy district.
The city's tracking of student attendance only lasted a portion of the year or a portion of each quarter.
During those times, much more effort went into calling the homes of missing students and finding out why they were not showing up to class.
I remember asking about why all the calls were happening or not happening and it was sort of quietly explained by the staffer: measurement of attendance affected how the school was being evaluated by the district. Presumably, budget was hooked to it in some way.
I didn't make any waves about it because "working" in this office was super powerful and the staffer always brought in cookies for us. Amazing gig.