Attendance form letters help you notify families about ongoing attendance issues while automatically creating discipline records for internal documentation. After building your attendance letter in jmc’s Form Designer, simply configure it with the appropriate problem behavior and action from the Discipline module. Then generate letters for all students who meet your attendance criteria—and, if desired, email the letters and create the corresponding discipline records with just a few clicks.
To work with AM/PM attendance letters, go to Attendance > Reports > Form Letter, and for period attendance letters, go to Period Attendance > Reports > Form Letter.
Step One: Select a form from the "Select Form" drop-down list to begin sending an attendance form letter or click the "Show Forms Configurations" button to view available letters and their discipline settings.
Step Two (optional): Click the "Add Row" link and follow steps three through five to configure a new attendance letter for discipline tracking.
Step Three (optional): Click the "Edit" link next to a new or existing row and select the appropriate form from the "Form" drop-down list.
Step Four (optional): Enter a description in the "Description" field to make the form easy to identify later.
Step Five (optional): Select a problem behavior and action from the drop-down lists to configure the letter for discipline tracking, then click the "Update" link to save or the "Cancel" link to discard your changes.
Helpful Tip: Click the "Delete" link next to an existing configuration to remove letter configurations your school no longer uses.
Step Six: Choose the appropriate radio button in the "Select" box to to define which students to include:
By Sequential: a range of students by student ID
By Random: individually selected students
By Grade: students by grade level
By Advisor: students grouped by advisor
Fun Fact: jmc automatically identifies students in your selected range who meet the attendance criteria defined in your form letter, using data from the Period Attendance or Attendance modules.
Step Seven (optional): Place a checkmark in the appropriate checkbox(es) to utilize special printing options.
Sort by Primary Contact: prints letters in order by primary contact
Primary Contact - Print only intended recipient's contact data: used for split households to prevent multiple primary contacts’ information from appearing on the same letter
*Print at most one form per Primary Contact: prints only one form for each primary contact listed for a student
*Include Period Zero: includes period zero when identifying students who meet absence criteria for period attendance letters
Helpful Tip: Options marked with an asterisk are only available when printing Period Attendance form letters.
Step Eight (optional): Place a checkmark in the "Email If Possible" checkbox to email letters to primary contacts instead of printing them.
Step Nine: Click the "Print" button to email and/or print letters for all students who meet the criteria defined in the form letter.
Step Ten: Click the "Create Corresponding Discipline Records" button to record attendance infractions in each student’s discipline record and prevent future duplicate letters.