Recording student attendance at sacrament meetings

[cfitch]

I am a stake clerk in a student ward at a church supported school. One of the ward clerks called and ask for advice. His bishop has asked him to record attendance at sacrament meetings by each individual student. The bishop wants data on the sacrament meeting attendance for each student when he does the ecclesiastical endorsement. My first thought is to push back but thought I would get other opinions before doing that. It can be done but the clerk would have to be on the stand and marking the attendance down in his roll. I would think it very distracting. If the bishop used the data to refuse an ecclesiastical endorsement the student could claim he was attending another ward sacrament meeting. What do you think?

[davesudweeks]

I think the bishop should pass his idea through his stake president for advice before implementing it. If he approves, it might be something to assign to the RS, EQ, and SS secretaries rather than the clerk. There is no way I know of to record sacrament meeting attendance by individual so it will have to be an offline record. The secretaries should already be recording attendance in 2nd hour so adding the sacrament piece (if approved) would not be as much of a stretch.

[russellhltn]

That's going beyond what's in HB1: 13.5.1.1. But I don't see anything prohibiting it. I'd be concerned about the distraction of trying to mark individuals.

[davesudweeks]

That's going beyond what's in HB1: 13.5.1.1. But I don't see anything prohibiting it. I'd be concerned about the distraction of trying to mark individuals.

I agree 100% which is why my first recommendation was to run it by the stake president. He will likely squash the idea (in my experience).