With the school year in full swing, attendance is done differently than ever before. Many Red Knights know the important role that former attendance supervisor Kathy Jacobson played in helping the school run its day to day functions. With Jacobson now retired, there were many roles and positions that needed to be taken care of, the biggest one being attendance management.

Attendance used to be handled by the attendance supervisor which included the duties of marking tardies when students come in, writing passes for students, and managing classroom attendance. These positions are now divided up between different office staff members. Senior high principals Ms. Dahlstrom and Mr. Weingartz have taken on somes of the roles Jacobson left behind, as well as Ms. Carlson and Ms. Huyck, who both work in the main office. The duty of notifying parents about different things including cell phone violations and other school related notices also used to come from Jacobson but have since been changed. “[Jacobson] always used to notify parents and stuff like that but now there’s a lot of notices that me and Ms. Dahlstrom will send out,” Weingartz said.

Although teachers still take attendance in the same way they usually have, the way attendance is taken care of for students and parents is different. Attendance is now done through a Google form which is managed by help desk technician Peter Schbloom. If a student is going to be absent on a day of school or needs to leave early, a parent of the student needs to fill out a Google form found on the BSM website. This form allows the parents to report the absence which then goes into a spreadsheet with all the other submissions. Schubloom then takes the responses and handles them accordingly. “[Schubloom] is entering in attendance and if there’s a sickness or doctor’s appointments or things like that and then he’s handing out the passes,” Weingartz said.

While some parents may enjoy the new attendance system because of its easy accessibility, others say they would prefer to just call in like prior years. Technology may be confusing for some parents who are not used to using google forms or online platforms. “I would say it’s not a very convenient system and I miss the personal interactions with Kathy,” senior high parent Jackie Gonyea said.