Staff members find fault in new attendance system

A new online attendance system requires teachers to log attendance for each of their classes but according to teachers the system has lots of little problems.

These problems in the attendance system create more effort from the head of attendance, Roxanne Fus. "[The new attendance] is a lot more work for me right now," said Fus.

Ms. Fus said that if teachers make mistakes, she has to correct them and if students are absent and teachers do not log their absence by Friday, she has to log it. Fus also says that when there are substitutes she always has to log the absences for them. Teachers who do not have computers in their rooms have to go back to there offices or someone else's room to log their attendance.

According to Media teacher Christopher Lloyd there are also problems in logging attendance for blocks such as the ninth grade social studies and English blocks and ninth grade CAP. "[The attendance] is structured by period and can't handle variations," said Lloyd.

Physical education teacher Cynthia Changuris said she still encounters bugs in the system. "Sometimes [the attendance] won't save and you have to keep trying," she said.

On the other hand Fus said that the attendance system is better because than students cannot show up to first period and skip the rest of the day. She also said that the new system is "much more accurate" and that "[fixing the attendance] is just a matter of working with the system." The system according to Fus costs less, as well. "With the old system I had to print out the rosters every week, using a whole ream of paper but now [the system] is all online."