One of the Offenders is Absent — How Do I Process the Incident?

In some situations, you may have multiple offenders in an incident, but one of the students is absent. Because simpldiscipline syncs incidents directly to your student information system (SIS), you cannot approve only part of an incident. One incident in simpldiscipline always represents one incident in the SIS.

This means that all offenders and actions tied to that incident must be finalized together before the incident can be approved.

Option 1: Temporarily Remove the Absent Student

If you need to process the incident immediately for the students who are present, you can remove the absent student from the incident.

• After submitting the incident for the available student(s), return later to edit the incident and add the absent student back once they return.

• Important: This option does not work for South Carolina districts using the Fight behavior code. Because South Carolina requires all students involved in a fight to be included in the same incident, you must use Option 2 instead.

Option 2: Assign a Temporary (Lesser) Action

If removing the student isn’t an option, you can assign a temporary action, such as Call to Parent or another minor consequence, to document the behavior until you’re ready to process the full action.

• This allows you to submit the incident and keep your reporting accurate.

• When the absent student returns, edit the incident to update the behavior and replace the temporary action with the correct one.

Why This Process Is Required

While some other systems allowed you to approve “parts” of an incident, those systems were not directly synced to the SIS. simpldiscipline works in real time with your SIS, meaning every incident in simpldiscipline is reflected as a single, complete incident in your SIS. This ensures accuracy and compliance with state reporting requirements.