Why attendance matters more for ESA schools
For most US ESA programs, attendance is not just a school records item — it is one of the documents state auditors actively request. Texas TEFA expects 180 instructional days. Arizona ESA looks for receipts plus an attendance count. Florida Step Up ties quarterly reporting to days of instruction. CohortLedger keeps a dated record for each student for each school day so this is a download, not a scramble.
1. Open Attendance for today
Click Attendancein the sidebar. The day view loads with today’s date by default, every enrolled student listed, and four marks per row.
2. The four marks
- Present — student attended the instructional day
- Late — student attended but arrived after the start window. Still counts as a day of instruction
- Excused — absent with a documented reason (illness, family event). Does not count toward instructional days
- Absent — unexcused. Does not count toward instructional days
Late counts the same as present for the instructional-day total, which matches most state ESA program guidance. Excused and absent both pull the student out of the day count.
3. Bulk mark
Most days are mostly Present. Use the Mark all present button at the top to set every student to present in one click, then adjust the one or two who were late or absent. This matches how operators actually take attendance — exception-based, not row by row.
4. Holidays and closures
On a holiday or closure day, do not mark any students. CohortLedger skips that date when computing instructional days. The school calendar in Settings → School profile defines which dates count as instructional days for your school year.
5. Reporting day count
The Reports tab shows the running instructional day count for the school year, broken down by present + late vs. the 180-day floor (or whatever your state requires). This number is the primary attendance metric on the quarterly audit packet.
Common mistakes
Two patterns to avoid: do not mark a student Present on a holiday (it inflates your instructional days and a reviewer will flag it). And do not skip days entirely — gaps in the attendance record look worse than a few Absent marks. If your school was closed, the calendar should reflect that.
Next
When the quarter ends, export the audit trail — attendance flows directly into the quarterly state-reviewer packet.