ACCESS TO ALL ATTENDANCE RECORDS FOR PARENTS

[SammyStout]

The lack of access to your child's attendance records is the MOST IGNORANT oversight I have ever seen. Attendance is of the utmost importance and no one thought that as parents, we might want to see these records? Pretty much there is NO other reason for me to bother logging into this site. It's a waste of my time if I don't know if my kid was even there or not. You might want to fix this and when you do, email me to tell me. Until then, Sayonara. 

Peace

[JeffCampbell · Accepted solution]

I am sorry that you feel this way. Unfortunately, this is a community forum, not Tech Support. Those of us on here are not able to fix it for you, only try to help answer your questions and guide you to possible solutions. Most of us would not even have access to your email to reach out to you. Maybe my response can help, maybe not. 

While there is the ability to take attendance in Canvas, it is not a Canvas tool. It is an external app that can be connected to Canvas to add the feature. It has to be enabled by the district before it can be used. Even then, students cannot directly view Attendance either. If used for grading, then an option appears in the student's Grades page that would reflect their attendance score. In my experience, most districts have an outside SIS (Student Information System) that is used for school records, attendance, grades, etc. PowerSchool is an example of one that our district uses. A first step would be to determine how your child's district tracks attendance. If they are using an SIS, then that is definitely not a Canvas issue and that could be a better way to observe student attendance. Canvas is not primarily an attendance tool.

For teachers, if we click on a student's name, we can get to their profile page. From there, we can access an Interactions Report and an Access Report. These can be used to see what they are clicking on and when they are accessing Canvas. I am not sure if this is accessible to parents with an observer account and cannot say how to get to it from an Observer Account.

As for value in this site, there is a ton for parents. Most importantly, the ability to see if your child is doing the work. We get students all the time that have claimed to turn in work, but then Canvas shows there is no submission. Teachers can also give feedback to students. The time stamps on both can be valuable from a parent's perspective, particularly if there are any concerns about grades. There have been times where I have had student's parents reach out about content in my class. If they have an observer account, I can point to specific resources. If they have a child sick for a few days, they can see exactly what the student is capable of seeing. Some times, a parent has stated that their child is confused. After pointing to some of the resources available, they have come back to state that they understood the content just fine and their child admitted to not bothering to look at the resources in the first place (One had a child admit to having the parent get involved in hopes that they could get them out of doing the work while at home). 

I do have some videos made for parents at our school: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsyPvV45CWyezg4M1wQr6tOOSKXHkIacI  If you do look at this and see a topic not addressed that you feel would be helpful, please let me know. I'd be glad to try and make a video to address that concern for parents.

As one additional benefit. Canvas is used by a lot of higher education institutions. Students learning how to navigate it now helps them further down the road. As a parent, you could be the force to help them see value in it and how to use it now, rather then them struggling down the road.

If have other specific questions, please ask. Many of us on here would be glad to assist.