Chronic Absenteeism (Iowa)

Last Modified on 01/09/2025 9:04 am CST

Tool Search:Chronic Absenteeism

The Chronic Absenteeism tool assists districts in following Iowa's state legislation by identifying chronic absenteeism and/or student truancy in the selected Calendar/Year.

State Definitions

  • A student is Absent if they are not physically on school grounds or are not participating in an expected and school-directed activity under the educational staff's direction, supervision, or instructional guidance at an approved off-grounds location for at least half the school day.
    • Whole Day Absence (minutes) and Half Day Absence (minutes) are defined on the Calendar. If BOTH fields are blank, 240 whole-day and 120 half-day are assumed.  

Screenshot of the whole/half day fields on the Calendar Information tool.

  • Chronically Absent means any absence from school for more than ten percent of the days or hours in the grading period established by a public school.
  • Truant is defined as any child of compulsory attendance age who does not qualify for the specified exemptions listed in Senate File 2435, fails to follow the school board's attendance policy, lacks a reasonable excuse for their absence, and has been absent from school for at least 20% of the days or hours in the grading period.


Screenshot of the Iowa Chronic Absenteeism tool editor.Chronic Absenteeism Editor

Report Logic

One record per reportable student that meets the Chronic Absenteeism Threshold as selected on the Extract Editor on/between the reporting range selected.
Reportable Student
  • Student State ID must NOT be null.
  • Student is NOT marked No Show or State Excluded on the calendar or State Excluded on the mapped State Grade Level Code. 
Chronic Absenteeism
  • Student's reportable absence MUST be marked with an Absence code NOT selected on the extract editor as EXCLUDED to count.
  • Student's calculated number of days or percent chronically absent in the reporting range meets or exceeds the THRESHOLD selected on the extract editor to report a record.

Report Editor

Data Element Description
Set Up
Search Calendars Use the search field to narrow the list of calendars to select. Use the Expand All/Collapse All option. Place a checkbox next to the desired school and calendars.
Show Active Year  Only

Only calendars for the active school year are available for selection when set to ON.


When set to OFF, all calendars from all school years are available for selection based on the user's tool rights. 

Report Options
Date Range
(required)

Only records within this date range report.

Date Range defaults:

  • First Date Field: First instructional day in the Calendar selected.
  • Second Date Field: Today's date or the last instructional day in the Calendar selected, whichever comes first.
Threshold Percent

 Enter the percentage of days/hours in the reporting period a student must be absent to report.
  • This option is not available if data is entered for Threshold Number of Days.
Threshold Number of Days Enter the number of whole days/half days in the reporting period a student must be absent to report.
  • This option is not available if data is entered for Threshold  Percent.
EXCLUDED Attendance CodesExtract considers all attendance codes NOT selected in this drop list into the Chronic Absenteeism calculation. See Attendance Code Setup for more information.  
Ad Hoc Filter Allows for the selection of a previously created filter. Only students included in the selected filter return on the report. 
Output Options
Report Processing Generate Now: Select to generate the report immediately,
Submit to Batch: Select when you want to determine when the report is generated. Submit to Batch is useful when generating reports for several calendars or larger amounts of reported data. See the Batch Queue article for more information.
Format Type Determines in which format the report is generated.
  • CSV (State Format)
  • HTML

Report Layout

Data Element Label Description Location
Year End Year


 Scheduling & Courses > Calendar Setup > School Year Setup > End Year

cal.endYear
DistrictNumber State District Number


District Information > District Detail > State District Number

District.number
SchoolNumber State School Number

 School & District Settings > Schools > School Information > State School Number

School.number
CalendarNameCalendar NameScheduling & Courses > Calendar Setup > Calendar Information > Name

cal.name
StudentStateID Student State ID


Census > People > Demographics > Student State ID

Person.stateID
StudentNumberStudent NumberCensus > People > Demographics > Local Student Number

student.studentNumber
LastName

Student's Last Name from the identity active on the report generation date.


 Census > People > Identities > Last Name

ident.lastName
FirstName

Student's First Name from the identity active on the report generation date.

 Census > People > Identities > First Name

ident.firstName
DOBStudent's Date of Birth in MM/DD/YYYY format.Census > People > Demographics > Birth Date

ident.birthdate
AgeStudent's calculated age as of report generation date based on DOB.Calculated, not stored.
GradeLevelStudent's local grade level at the time of report generationEnrollment > Grade Level

enrollment.grade
CAThreshold

Reports the threshold value entered on the extract editor:

  • Number of Days - report as "value entered Days"
  • Percent - report as "value entered Percent"
Value is entered in the extract editor but is not stored.
CAIndicator

Based on the Threshold selected on the Extract Editor, reports the calculated absenteeism from the student's enrollment start date to the student's enrollment end date or the date of report generation (whichever comes first). 


IF field 12 reports as Number of Days:

  • Determine Whole Day/Half Day Absence per Date in the reporting range:
    • Consider Half-Day Absent Minutes marked on the Calendar:
      • If a value is entered, use this value as the half-day minutes threshold in the calculation.
        • If Half Day Minutes on the Calendar is BLANK, use 120 minutes as the 1/2 day threshold.
    • Consider Whole Day Absent Minutes marked on the Calendar:
      • If a value is entered, use this value as the whole-day minutes threshold in the calculation.
        • If Half Day Minutes on the Calendar is BLANK, use 240 minutes as the whole day threshold.
    • Calculation:
      1. IF the calculated minutes of their scheduled instructional attendance time that the student is marked absent meets the (whole-day absent minutes threshold), count the day as 1.0 (full day) absent.
      2. IF calculated minutes of their scheduled instructional attendance time that the student is marked absent meets the (half-day absent minutes threshold), count the day as .5 (half day) absent.
      3. IF calculated minutes of the student's scheduled instructional attendance time that the student is marked absent does NOT meet the half-day absent minutes threshold, do not count the student as absent on that date.
      4. Reports the calculated Total.
  • IF field 12 reports as Percent
    • Determine Calculated percent absent:
      1. Count the number of instructional attendance minutes the student is scheduled during the reporting range.
      2. Count the number of instructional attendance minutes the student is marked absent during the reporting range.
      3. Divide the total Absent Minutes by the total Scheduled Minutes
        • Multiply the result by 100 - then round to the nearest whole number between 1 and 100.
        • Report calculated value - (Normal Rounding Rules apply).

Scheduling & Courses > Calendar Setup > Calendar Information > Half Day Absence (minutes)


Calculated not stored


Example Report

Screnshot of an example Chronic Absenteeism Report in CSV format.Chronic Absenteeism Report- CSV Format


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