Playbook

The late-arrival kiosk, step by step

The morning line at the front desk is where attendance accuracy is won or lost. This page describes the workflow as EduQueue runs it for Union City Board of Education, NJ — not a generic ideal — and ends with a one-page SOP you can print for the desk today. The vocabulary (event, outcome, time window, building exchange) is ours; the idea works with pen and paper too.

The workflow

The school sets up a “Late to School” event. An event is a named thing students check in to, active on chosen days between a start and an end time. It is given the report type Late to School, which is what makes its check-ins count as attendance rather than, say, a club sign-in. A guard or front-desk user is assigned, or the event auto-assigns whoever is on the desk.
Outcomes are defined, each with a time window and an attendance code. For example: Tardy 8:05–8:20, code T; Late 8:20–9:30, code L; Unexcused 9:30–11:00, code UNX. The code is a short field the district’s own SIS administrator types in; it is the SIS’s attendance code, not ours, so there is no mapping table to maintain. An outcome can also be marked denied (turn the student around to the office) or print a badge (a slip the student carries to class).
The student scans their ID at the kiosk. Any browser with a camera or a USB barcode scanner works; the district’s existing ID cards are used as-is. No app on the student’s phone, no account for the student.
The outcome is assigned by the clock, not by the person at the desk. The event’s outcome method is chronological: the scan time is matched to the outcome whose window contains it. (The other method, sequential, advances a student through outcomes on successive scans — check in, then check out — which is how the shared-campus building exchange and field-trip style events run.) The desk sees the name, photo, homeroom and outcome; it does not decide the outcome, which is the point.
The attendance record is written with the code. Student, event, location, time, who was on the desk, and the outcome’s code. Each outcome step is also written to the audit log, so a later dispute (“I was here at 8:19”) is answered from the record.
The code is posted to PowerSchool. Today that is a nightly attendance export the district’s PowerSchool admin consumes; a direct API write-back through a PowerSchool plugin is being installed with the district, and the open question there is theirs, not ours: whether the code lands as daily or meeting attendance. If your SIS is not PowerSchool, ask before assuming.
The parent is notified by the SIS. EduQueue does not text parents about late arrival. Once the code is in PowerSchool, the district’s existing attendance notifications do what they already do — one message stream for families, not two.
The daily report goes out. Events can email a report to a list at day’s end: ID, name, building, grade, homeroom, date, scan time, desk user, status. For a sequential event the report carries both the check-in and the check-out.

Screenshot placeholder — late-arrival kiosk, front-desk view

Labelled regions, left to right:

Scan field with the event name (“Late to School — High School”) and today’s date.
Student card: photo, name, grade, homeroom, ID number.
Outcome badge in colour: “LATE · 8:41 · code L”, with the window that produced it.
Notes field (optional; “bus 14 late”) and the desk user’s name.
Today’s count by outcome, and a link to the report.

A real capture will replace this; we would rather show a placeholder than a mock-up dressed as a screenshot.

Shared campus: building exchange

Some districts have students whose day spans two buildings — a magnet program in one, homeroom in another. EduQueue’s building exchange registers those students, checks them out of building A and into building B with a location on each leg, and closes the exchange out automatically at day’s end if a leg was missed. The reports page lists the day’s exchanges, so the front desk in either building can answer “is she here or there?” without a phone call. Hall-pass tools describe movement between rooms; this is movement between doors.

What to decide before you switch on

The windows. Agree them with the attendance officer, not the vendor. The most common mistake is a gap between windows (8:20 ends, 8:21 begins) that leaves a scan with no outcome.
The codes. Copy them from the SIS attendance-code table exactly. If the SIS has no code for one of your outcomes, add it there first.
Who is on the desk. The record stores the user; use real accounts, not a shared “frontdesk” login.
The no-ID path. Students forget cards. Decide the manual lookup rule (name and homeroom, photo confirmed) and put it in the SOP.
The report list. Who gets the daily email, and who acts on a student appearing on it three times in a week. The report is only useful if someone owns it.

Front-desk SOP (print this)

One page, deliberately plain. Fill in the bracketed parts and tape it by the kiosk.

Late-arrival desk — standard operating procedure

School: [name] Event: Late to School Active: [days], [start]–[end] Owner: [attendance officer]

Window	Outcome	SIS code	Action at desk
[8:05–8:20]	Tardy	[T]	Scan; student goes to class with printed slip.
[8:20–9:30]	Late	[L]	Scan; slip; note reason if offered (bus, medical).
[9:30–end]	Unexcused	[UNX]	Scan; send to main office; office decides.

Log in as yourself. Never use a shared account; the record stores who was on the desk.
Student scans ID. Confirm the photo matches the person. If it does not, stop and call [name/extension].
Do not change the outcome. The clock assigns it. If the student disputes the time, note it in the notes field; the attendance officer reviews disputes from the audit log, not at the desk.
No ID card: look up by name and homeroom, confirm the photo, proceed. Tell the student to see [office] for a replacement. More than [3] no-card arrivals in a month: note it on the daily report.
Parent or guardian present with a reason: scan as normal (the code still posts); hand the note to [attendance officer] for an excused override in the SIS. The kiosk does not excuse; the office does.
Kiosk down: use the paper log on the reverse of this sheet (time, name, homeroom, your initials). Enter it into the system before [time] the same day.
End of window: check today’s count on screen matches the paper backup if one was used. The daily report emails automatically to [list] at [time].

Escalation: [assistant principal, extension]. Last reviewed [date].

Notes

Everything on this page describes our own product and is not independently sourced. The event / outcome / time-window / sequential / chronological / building-exchange model is how EduQueue is built; other tools use other words for overlapping ideas (Securly Pass “Tardy Management”, Minga “built-in tardy management”, SmartPass “Missed Class Time Tracking”) and are compared on the comparison page.
Reference district: Union City Board of Education, NJ, about 11,500 students. Ask us and we will put you in touch.