Attendance is the quietest part of the report card and the one most likely to produce a problem you cannot fix in June. Under DepEd Order No. 15, s. 2026, attendance appears on every term report, one threshold triggers intervention with parents, and another can cost a learner credit for the year regardless of grades.
This guide covers what must appear on the card, the two numbers that matter, and what an adviser should do at each one.
The 10-second answer: Attendance goes on every term report, taken from your daily record (SF2). At around 12 absences, intervene with parents or guardians and document it. Above 20% of class days absent, the learner faces a failing grade and no credit unless the absences are justified — with documented exemptions granted by the School Head. Raise these early; neither threshold is meant to be discovered in April.
Attendance belongs on the report card
Every term report carries the learner’s attendance for that term — days of school and days present or absent. It is not optional, and it is not a note you add only when there is a problem. Take the figures from your daily attendance record rather than reconstructing them from memory at grading week; the report card is a record of what SF2 already says.
Two habits prevent nearly all attendance errors:
- Total the days as the term goes, not at the end. A running total exposes a pattern while there is still time to act on it.
- Record the reason, not just the absence. The difference between justified and unjustified absence decides the second threshold below, and nobody remembers three months later.
The first threshold: about 12 absences
At roughly a dozen absences, DO 15 expects intervention with parents or guardians. The order does not prescribe a script, which means the standard is whatever you can show you did.
What “intervention” should look like in a folder:
- A dated record of the contact — a call, a home visit, a letter, a conference — and who you spoke to.
- What was agreed, in one or two sentences.
- Any referral you made: guidance office, school head, a school-based support programme.
- What happened afterwards, noted a few weeks later.
This is the same evidence that later supports a promotion decision or an IPCRF entry, so it is not extra work — it is work you can only do once, at the time.
The second threshold: over 20% of class days
Absences exceeding 20% of the class days mean a failing grade and no credit for the learning area or the year, unless the absences are justified. Exemptions are documented and granted by the School Head — not by the adviser, and not by the class record.
The arithmetic is worth doing early, because 20% arrives sooner than it sounds:
| Class days in the period | 20% is | Intervention threshold (about 12) |
|---|---|---|
| 60 days | 12 days absent | reached at roughly the same point |
| 100 days | 20 days absent | reached much earlier |
| 180 days | 36 days absent | reached very early in the year |
In a short reporting period the two thresholds nearly coincide; across a full year the intervention threshold arrives far ahead of the credit threshold, which is precisely the point. The 12-absence mark is the warning; the 20% mark is the consequence.
Justified, exempted, and neither
Three states, and advisers routinely blur them:
- Justified — the absence has an accepted reason and supporting documentation.
- Exempted — the School Head has documented an exemption for the learner’s situation.
- Neither — the absence counts against the threshold.
Your job is to record which is which as it happens and to escalate before the total crosses the line. Deciding the outcome is not yours; presenting an accurate, documented picture is.
How attendance interacts with grades
Attendance is not a component of the grade. It does not get weighted alongside written works or performance tasks, and marking a learner down for absences inside a component is not permitted — the grade reflects assessed learning, computed as our MATATAG grading guide describes. Attendance affects the record in a different way: it triggers intervention, and past the 20% line it can cost credit despite passing marks.
That separation is why a learner can appear promotable on the grades page and still need a decision from the school. Our guide to promotion, retention, and the Summer Remedial Class covers how the two lines of evidence meet at year end.
A five-minute routine that prevents most of the trouble
- Weekly: total absences per learner; circle anyone who added two or more this week.
- At about 8 absences: make first contact with parents or guardians. Ahead of the threshold, not at it.
- At about 12: the documented intervention described above, plus a referral if the pattern is not changing.
- At 15% of class days: raise it with your school head in writing. You are now close enough to 20% that a decision needs preparing, and nobody thanks you for a surprise in April.
- Each grading week: copy the figures onto the report card from SF2 and check them against your running total.
The full grading-week sequence, including where attendance sits, is in our three-term assessment calendar.
Frequently asked questions
Is a tardy an absence?
Tardiness is recorded as tardiness, not as an absence, and schools accumulate it differently. Follow your school’s rule and record it consistently — but do not convert tardies into absences on the report card on your own initiative.
Does a learner on an approved school activity count as absent?
Representing the school is normally treated as an excused or exempted absence with documentation. Get the activity’s documentation into the learner’s file at the time; reconstructing it in April is how avoidable disputes start.
Do I compute 20% per term or for the year?
Apply it to the period the record covers, and follow your school’s practice for how the year is evaluated — schools differ in how they aggregate terms. What is not negotiable is that the figures on each term’s card match your daily record.
What if a learner’s absences are driven by a family situation?
Document it, refer it, and escalate it to the School Head — exemptions exist for exactly this and are decided at that level. Advisers carry the information, not the decision.
Where Skoolari fits
Skoolari’s DepEd mode takes the days of school and days absent you enter and carries them onto every term report card, so the card matches the record without being retyped. Beside each learner, it flags the two thresholds — about 12 or more absences, and absences over 20% of class days, including whether you have marked the case as exempted — on the same page as the promotion status, so the attendance picture and the grade picture are read together rather than in separate folders. It flags; your school decides. See the plans.
Attendance handling varies by school and by division memorandum. Check the thresholds and the exemption process against your current issuances before acting on a specific learner’s case.