Chronic absence alerts

Zion watches each student’s attendance record and raises an alert when a consecutive-absence streak or a 30-day absence rate crosses a threshold. Administrators see alerts across every learning centre. Supervisors see alerts only for their assigned centres.

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How an alert is triggered

Every morning, before the school day starts, Zion reviews attendance for every active student and compares two measures against configured thresholds:

• Consecutive absences. Absent school days in a row, counting backward from the most recent day and skipping weekends and holidays. The streak breaks on the first present, late, or unrecorded day.
• 30-day absence rate. The percentage of school days marked absent in the trailing 30 days.

These numbers are the defaults. An administrator can change the consecutive-absence and rate thresholds for the organization; see Alerts and reports settings. An alert stays open and up to date as long as the student keeps meeting the criteria. If a warning-level student later crosses the critical thresholds, the same alert escalates to critical rather than creating a duplicate. If the student’s attendance improves enough to fall below both thresholds, the alert resolves automatically the next time Zion checks.

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The cool-down after you act on an alert

Once a staff member acknowledges or dismisses an alert for a student, Zion will not raise a new alert for that same student for about a week, even if the student is still absent and technically still meets the threshold. This stops a family you already followed up with from generating a fresh alert, and a fresh notification email, the very next morning. The cool-down has one exception: if the student’s absences get significantly worse during that week and cross into a higher severity than the one you acted on (for example, a warning you acknowledged escalates to critical), Zion still raises a new alert right away. And the cool-down only applies after a human acknowledges or dismisses an alert. An alert that resolved on its own because the student’s attendance improved is treated as a closed case, so if the same student later starts missing school again, Zion alerts on it immediately, with no waiting period.

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Alert lifecycle

Each alert moves through one status at a time:

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Acknowledging an alert

Acknowledging records that you took action. Zion requires intervention notes before it will accept the acknowledgment, so an alert cannot be closed silently. A good intervention note names who you contacted, what was discussed, and any follow-up commitment. For example: called the student’s mother, discussed the absences, learned the family is relocating, and agreed the student would return after the break with a follow-up scheduled for a specific date.

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Dismissing an alert

Dismissing closes an alert as a false alarm or a case that does not need an intervention. Zion requires a reason of 1 to 500 characters before it will accept the dismissal.

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Who can act on an alert

Administrators can acknowledge or dismiss any alert in the organization. Supervisors can act only on alerts for students in their assigned learning centres.

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Alert digest

When an alert fires, Zion dispatches an attendance notification, both in-app and by email, to organization administrators and to any supervisor or monitor whose assigned centre includes the affected student. An administrator can also turn on a daily email digest, delivered each morning, that summarizes new alerts in one message. It is off by default and can be turned on from Alert Settings.