User Support Forum

We have a situation in some of our Sunday School classses where teachers share the duty, particulary in the children's classes. For example, teacher A will teach the class on 1st and 3rd sundays and teacher B on the 2nd and 4th Sundays. So they are both listed as being in that activity as teachers. They also may belong to an adult Sunday School class that they attend when they are not teaching. I have noticed that the SS dicrector has them as members of both activities. It seems to me that this would inflate your SS membership numbers and distort the attendance reports. They would always be absent from one of the classes.
Do others have this situation and if so, how do you handle it?
thanks,
Debbie

debbieg wrote:We have a situation in some of our Sunday School classses where teachers share the duty, particulary in the children's classes. For example, teacher A will teach the class on 1st and 3rd sundays and teacher B on the 2nd and 4th Sundays. So they are both listed as being in that activity as teachers. They also may belong to an adult Sunday School class that they attend when they are not teaching. I have noticed that the SS dicrector has them as members of both activities. It seems to me that this would inflate your SS membership numbers and distort the attendance reports. They would always be absent from one of the classes.
Do others have this situation and if so, how do you handle it?
thanks,
Debbie

There is a way to differentiate. We would have these people setup with a Role of 'teachers' for the children's SS class. Thus if they were not listed as being present in the class for that Sunday, it would reflect that the teacher was not there. They would be listed as Members of the Adult SS class, thus this would reflect that they are there (or not there) solely as members of the class.

In either case, you are accounting for the person. As teachers, they should not be counted as members of the children's SS class for purposes of class attendance. If they are attending the Adult class, they are members and are counted as present there.

This may cause the adult class to not reflect true numbers, then again, if they alternate attendance at the Adult class, the numbers would remain the same; as would the numbers in the children's SS class.

Thanks Neil. I believe that is the way that they are set up....teacher in one class, member in the other. I guess we just have to make sure that the pastor understands that if he is looking at statistical reports.
Actually, I don't think the reports are structured for what we are looking for any way. The statistics report reflects all roles in the class....members and teachers as well as visitors. That really distorts the true picture of how your SS class is doing. For example, i teach a small children's class and we almost always have 100% attendance. But there are about 5 children who are listed as visitors and they are included in the statistics. So the year-to-date report right now shows our class as averaging 48% where it is actually 89%.
Is there any way to change this or would this require a customized report?
Debbie

debbieg wrote:Thanks Neil. I believe that is the way that they are set up....teacher in one class, member in the other. I guess we just have to make sure that the pastor understands that if he is looking at statistical reports.
Actually, I don't think the reports are structured for what we are looking for any way. The statistics report reflects all roles in the class....members and teachers as well as visitors. That really distorts the true picture of how your SS class is doing. For example, i teach a small children's class and we almost always have 100% attendance. But there are about 5 children who are listed as visitors and they are included in the statistics. So the year-to-date report right now shows our class as averaging 48% where it is actually 89%.
Is there any way to change this or would this require a customized report?
Debbie

Debbie, these reports can be filtered by whom you want to show, such as only members, or only members and family members.

In other words, you can exclude visitors from the reports.

Neil,
isn't the filter referring to personal profile status? That is not necessarily the same as their role in the activity. For example, people often attend SS classes for awhile but they are not "members" of our church. they are, however, a member of the SS class.
Debbie

debbieg wrote:Neil,
isn't the filter referring to personal profile status? That is not necessarily the same as their role in the activity. For example, people often attend SS classes for awhile but they are not "members" of our church. they are, however, a member of the SS class.
Debbie

True, but you mentioned that they were visitors, so that's what I assumed you meant.

I would like to piggy back this question one bit further. What if someone served as a Steward on, say, Communications Chair to Administrative Council and then several years later, served as, say, Finance Chair to Admin Council? I am trying to add all our past years to get us caught up, but it keeps telling me that they are already a member of that Activity and Skill.

Do I have to enter it in Offices held, rather than the Activities and Skills?

Yes, Activities & Skills only stores people who are involved in an activity now.

Offices Served holds date-related information about positions previously or currently being held.