ScholarChip has detailed its work with Westbury Public Schools in Nassau County, Long Island in a new case study. The initiative uses the company’s attendance kiosks — portable dual screen, dual sensor units — that are placed at the entrances to both the high school and the middle school every morning. Students tap their cards or input their ID numbers upon entering the building.

The automated process generates a list of late or absent students and then parents are called by an automated system that reports the students as absent. It’s a process that streamlines daily attendance and allows school staff to focus on other tasks.

Later in the day, the high school kiosk units are moved to the cafeteria entrance where students again tap their ID cards in order to enter the cafeteria for lunch. If they are not scheduled for lunch that period, their picture will display on the kiosk with an error message indicating that the student belongs elsewhere.

For the middle and high schools, the kiosks can be used for events during or after school hours. Students can just as easily tap in to attend a sporting event, dance, concert or any other school-sponsored program, adding a level of accountability and control to campus administrators.

One of the requirements stated in APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review) is to track seat time for all students in order to calculate the percentage of responsibility for each teacher. Westbury installed card readers in every classroom, office, gym, and auditorium to keep more accurate statistics on seat time. Students now tap their cards upon entering the classroom. The teacher’s computer screen displays pictures of all the students in that class, and indicates their presence by turning their framed picture from red to green.

Using the ScholarChip attendance kiosks has enabled Westbury Schools has:

• Transferred the responsibility for student attendance to the students, making them more accountable.
• Discovered that the system returned up to four minutes of instruction time per period.
• Increased security by accurately tracking student locations.
• Monitored and reviewed accumulated seat time by teacher for easier reporting.

The student ID cards also carry personal schedule information and, at the high school level, are checked by hall monitors using mobile devices that verify that the students are going to the correct class for the correct period.

To request a copy of the full ScholarChip case study on Westbury Public Schools, visit the company’s website.