Do holidays and cancelled classes count in attendance?
Your attendance is attended ÷ held. The tricky part is deciding what counts as a class "held". Here's how the common cases usually work, and how to handle them in your own record.
Holidays
Usually not counted. On a public or college holiday no classes are held, so nothing goes into either number. A holiday doesn't raise or lower your percentage, it just doesn't exist as far as attendance is concerned.
The same goes for your regular weekly day off, and for days when the college is closed unexpectedly, like heavy rain or a local strike.
Cancelled classes
Usually not counted, if the class genuinely didn't happen and no attendance was taken. If the teacher was absent and the period was free, there's nothing to attend.
The catch: if a class was rescheduled to another day, the makeup class usually is counted. So a "cancelled" Tuesday class might reappear as an extra on Saturday.
Free periods with a substitute
Depends. If another teacher took the period and attendance was marked, it probably counts, sometimes under a different subject. If someone just sat with the class and no attendance was taken, it usually doesn't.
Library periods, events, sports
Varies a lot between colleges. Some count a library period or a college event as attendance (often as present for everyone who's there), some don't count it at all. Activity slots like sports, yoga or NSS may have separate rules. If it matters to you, ask your class coordinator how these periods are recorded.
Arriving late or leaving early
Most colleges count attendance per period. If you arrive after attendance is taken, you'll probably be marked absent for that period even if you sat through most of it. Leaving after the first period means you're absent for the rest, not present for the day.
How to handle these in your own record
- Holiday or college closed: mark the whole day as a holiday so it isn't counted.
- A single cancelled period: mark that period as "no class". It drops out of both attended and held.
- A substitute or library period that was counted: record it the way the college does, under the subject they recorded it as, if you know it.
- An extra or makeup class: add it on the day it happened.
In Attendance Tracker, the day editor has a Holiday / No Class switch for whole days, and each period has Present, Absent and No class buttons. You can change a period's subject when the timetable didn't match what happened.
When in doubt, match the register
The point of keeping your own count is to know what the college's number will be. So whenever you're unsure, record it the way your college would. If you don't know how they handle something, it's worth asking once. You'll know for the rest of the semester.