For most of you reading this article, your classroom attendance was tracked the old way, which is via roll call. While individual reading of names works, it is time-consuming and takes roughly 10 minutes away from the allotted time for lectures, which could add up to about 30 hours in a given school year.

The old school style of checking student attendance is still used in many schools across the United States, but some school districts are now adapting modern tools that utilize a number of smart card technologies for a more accurate and robust tracking system. Before we discuss what these new technologies are, let’s look at why tracking classroom attendance is important.

• An attendance record enables teachers and other school officials to analyze a student’s performance and correlate it with the student’s attendance.
• Course or lesson planning is made more efficient as teachers have something empirical to refer to when scheduling topics or lessons that need further review or discussions.
• Attendance records promote student accountability and help decrease student absenteeism, specifically truancy.
• Tracking classroom attendance can help spot other issues that prevent students from attending classes like bullying or problems at home.

So, how can educators track classroom attendance accurately and more efficiently? The answer is in ID-based classroom attendance tracking systems. There are several solutions available but they all work the same way – passive sensors or readers are placed near an entrance, typically in hallways or classroom doors, and whenever a student ID card is waved nearby, the reader recognizes it and records the student as being present in class. It also records other minute details like the time of arrival, and time spent in class, among others. The information is then sent to a database via an internal network managed by the school.

Depending on the provider, different card technologies are used for tracking classroom attendance. Some cards are RFID-based like the ones used by retail stores, other use proximity cards similar to the technology used by businesses. More affordable options include the use of regular ID cards printed with barcodes or QR codes, which is a solution commonly utilized by supermarkets.

In addition to classroom attendance tracking, the system can be expanded to include automation of other school services like cafeteria meal payments, library checkout, and access to school facilities like science labs and the gym.