Seminary attendance recording

The call of teach Seminary comes with a large sacrifice from both the teacher and their family. One way technology can help reduce that tax is to make attendance recording easier. Building an app / program to log attendance in the morning is quite easy, however the benefit of doing so is somewhat limited unless there is a way to transfer this data directly otherwise electronic attendance recording is not much better than paper records. Is there a way to submit attendance results from a program today? or could one be added?

Thanks.

Throughout this last seminary year, I received prompt emails when my son was late to Seminary or missed a class. Those emails seemed to be sent by an automated system. I live in Utah, so that system might not be available throughout the country or the world, but it seems clear that some electronic system for recording seminary attendance does exist.

I'm in Texas (no release time seminary or full time seminary teachers) I'm aware of a browser based system teachers can input attendance, but having entered the data through that interface it's not something you would access via something like a tablet or a class secretary would be accessing, nor is it a realistic format teachers can use without disruption of instruction time. So how long does it take to enter one day's attendance .. I would guess 10-15 minutes. Keep in mind that's 10-15 minutes on top of the 2-3 hours we are already asking from the teachers on a daily basis. Any small ways we can use technology to help keep the focus on ministering and not administering is a win in my book.

Currently students and parents don't have any sort of feedback with regards to attendance records. They would need to get that from the teacher or a member of the Bishopric (of course that only works if the data has actually been manually entered).

The church released an attendance app just like what you are requesting within the last year. It can be accessed by going to teacher.ldschurch.org and then saving this site as an app on your device. It links in with WISE so you don't have to go on and manually input them again. It has been a lifesaver for me.

I have tried to access the teacher.ldschurch.org site to download for help with attendance recording. However, the suggested approach doesn't work because I always receive and "exception" from the site. Is anyone else experiencing this? Any workarounds? Such an "app" would greatly help with attendance recording. Many thanks!

Maybe the tool is only available in certain areas currently? I'm not sure.

What do the acronymns in WISE attendance stand for? I get AB (absent) and P (present), T (tardy) but what do MAB and MT stand for?

geoffsmiller wrote:What do the acronymns in WISE attendance stand for?

It stands for Worldwide Institute and Seminary Enrollment. I found a training video from 2015 you might find helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itj1uMdmJjA

In the video, MAB apparently stands for "made up absence" - that is the student was absent that day, but did make-up work so as not to fall below the minimums for graduation.

russellhltn wrote:In the video, MAB apparently stands for "made up absence" - that is the student was absent that day, but did make-up work so as not to fall below the minimums for graduation.

From that I would infer that MT is made up tardy, but that's just a guess

jonesrk wrote:I would infer that MT is made up tardy, but that's just a guess

In the video, the student was originally reported Absent (AB). After additional work was completed, the teacher selected the day and chose the Made Up option, which changed the reported day to MAB.

I think your guess is correct. I think if the teacher clicks on a Tardy day (T) and selects the Made Up option, the report will change to MT.

Having trouble getting into the attendance for Seminary classes can anyone help please.

JRichards21 wrote: Tue Feb 28, 2023 1:16 pm Having trouble getting into the attendance for Seminary classes can anyone help please.

Try using incognito mode. Church websites have a problem with cookie buildup and using incognito is a quick way to see if that's the problem.