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MCC Daily Tribune

Starfish Attendance Soft Rollout

As discussed at the end of the spring 2019 semester, MCC is doing a "soft rollout" of the requirement to document student attendance in Starfish. In a June 6, 2019 memo to then-Faculty Senate President Amanda Colosimo, I indicated that for fall 2019, faculty will be provided support for and strongly encouraged to enter student attendance data. However, during the fall 2019 soft rollout, students will not be automatically withdrawn from classes when they reach the 30 percent absenteeism threshold. Instead, the Starfish messages will be sent when students reach absence thresholds, warning them of their problematic attendance, offering learning support suggestions, and eventually suggesting that students consider withdrawing themselves. Additionally, the soft rollout will allow the faculty time to acclimate to attendance-taking and give MCC time to work on connecting our systems to allow for full implementation in the future.

The draft policy and procedure went to the Board of Trustees this month for action at the October 7, 2019 board meeting. As part of the policy development process, we collected and responded to many comments from the college community; the executive summary response and an "FAQ" were distributed at the board meeting and also posted in the Tribune (August 6, 2019).

In order to help faculty with details involved in taking attendance, we are creating an Attendance Taking Protocol to provide step-by-step information on taking attendance and related activities. We have also created Starfish Attendance Instructions for face-to-face and online courses, and instructions on adding a note in the attendance field so instructors can capture information on tardiness, among other things.

For more information, please see the documents attached and feel free to email withdrawal@monroecc.edu with any questions.

Attached Files:
Starfish Attendance Instructions F2F.pdf
Starfish Attendance Instructions Recording Notes.pdf
Starfish Attendance Instructions Online.pdf
Fall 2019 Attendance FAQs.pdf

Andrea Wade
Marketing and Community Relations
08/27/2019