ADA (Average Daily Attendance) calculations are often directly tied to student funding. ADA calculations vary by state.
See the Configure Attendance Parameters article for more information.
Types of ADA
Campus calculates ADA in two ways:
- Individual ADA: When ADA is used for individual attendance calculations, a student’s individual present day totals are compared to the expected number of instructional days of the calendar.
- Group ADA: When ADA is used to determine group attendance aggregates, the sum of present days of all students are compared to the total expected number of instructional days for the group.
Student Day Minutes
ADA is based on the amount of time a student is expected to be in class, or the “student day” minutes. This value is defined by a state or other funding entity and must be entered in Campus for correct attendance calculations.
Student day minutes can be set in two areas:
- Student Day field of the Calendar Information and/or the
- Standard Day field of a grade on the Grade Level Setup.
The Campus system will base ADA calculations from the value (in minutes) entered in these fields.
If no Student Day/Standard Day minutes have been defined, the system defaults to a value of 360.
Grade level minutes will always trump calendar minutes: If values have been entered in both the (calendar) Student Day field and the (grade level) Standard Day field, the system will always use the value from the (grade level) Standard Day field for students enrolled in that grade.
ADA Methods
Campus offers two main methods for calculating ADA: approximate and percent/exact.
Approximate ADA
The approximate attendance method is also known as Whole/Half-Day Attendance. It is used to calculate an ADA value for each student.
Approximate attendance calculations round a student’s daily attendance value to a whole-day value (1) or a half-day value (.5). Margins determining what constitutes a whole or half-day absence are based on the number of minutes entered in the Whole Day Absence and Half Day Absence fields of the Calendar Information and Grade Level Setup tools.
Any whole-day or half-day values entered on a grade level will always override those entered on the calendar.
- Full-Day Present:If a student’s total daily absent minutes are less than the value entered in the Half Day Absence field of the grade level/calendar, the student is considered fully present for the day (ADA = 1 for that day).
- Half-Day Absence: If a student’s total daily absent minutes match or exceed the value entered in the Half Day Absence field of the grade level/calendar, but are less than the value entered in the Whole Day Absence field on the grade level/calendar, the student is considered absent for half of a day (ADA = .5 for that day).
- Whole-Day Absence: If a student’s total daily absent minutes match or exceed the value entered in the Whole Day Absence field of the grade level/calendar, the student is considered absent for the entire day (ADA = 0 for that day).
Approximate ADA Examples
| Absent Minutes | Full-Day ≤ 159 absent minutes | Half-Day 160-179 absent minutes | Whole-Day ≥ 180 absent minutes | Daily ADA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 ≤ 159 | 1.0 | ||
| 159 | 159 ≤ 159 | 1.0 | ||
| 160 | 160 ≥ 160 | 0.5 | ||
| 179 | 179 ≥ 160 | 0.5 | ||
| 180 | 180 ≥ 180 | 0.0 | ||
| 300 | 300 ≥ 180 | 0.0 |
Exact ADA
In exact ADA calculations, a student’s total number of present minutes for a day are multiplied by the student’s Percent Enrolled (percent expressed in decimal form). That resulting value is then divided by the student/standard day minutes.
This results in an exact ADA value, expressed in decimal form, that is within the range of 0 and 1. Whole/half-day calculations are NOT used in this method.
The Percent Enrolled option may or may not be applied to ADA, depending on state preferences. If Percent Enrolled is not applied, the calculation consists of finding the student’s daily present minutes and dividing them by the student/standard day minutes.
Exact ADA Examples
The following examples show a student’s daily ADA calculations for the given scenarios, with and without the Percent Enrolled factor (Student day = 300 minutes):
| Present Minutes | Exact Calculation | Daily ADA |
|---|---|---|
| Exact ADA (not considering Percent Enrolled) | ||
| 0 | 0 / 300 | 0.0000 |
| 20 | 20 / 300 | 0.0667 |
| 68 | 68 / 300 | 0.2267 |
| 129 | 129 / 300 | 0.4300 |
| 180 | 180 / 300 | 0.6000 |
| 300 | 300 / 300 | 1.0000 |
| Present Minutes | Exact Calculation | Daily ADA |
|---|---|---|
| Exact ADA (where Percent Enrolled value = 75) | ||
| 0 | (0 * .75) / 300 | 0.0000 |
| 20 | (20 * .75) / 300 | 0.0500 |
| 68 | (68 * .75) / 300 | 0.1700 |
| 129 | (129 * .75) / 300 | 0.3225 |
| 180 | (180 * .75) / 300 | 0.4500 |
| 300 | (300 * .75 / 300 | 0.7500 |
Attendance Rates
Attendance rates are often calculated for a school, district or state. This calculation may be done in aggregate form or per student, depending on state preferences. The standard calculation is expressed in percentage form and may be used in state reports and/or extracts.
ADA is divided by ADM and the result is multiplied by 100.
