A new system that will help track absences for students from kindergarten to grade 8 is being introduced by Anglophone East School District.
Previously, parents had to call into the school and leave a phone message with the child’s name and the reason for the absence.
Superintendent Gregg Ingersoll says this new program makes it much easier, “Parents can report an absence either using a mobile app on their phone or they can go to a website or they can call in. There is a toll free number or they can call the school main line and press one for attendance, and report an absence.”
If the parents do not report the absence, the system will try and reach them via emails and phone numbers that have been provided to the district, “Once the system does its thing and checks all of the attendance, there may still be some students, that the parents were not able to contact the school, so the school will then take steps to figure out what is going on.”
Ingersoll points out that high schools currently use a system that tracks absences by period, but he says they will switch the new system in the future.