<p>I had 12 years of perfect attendance. I missed a week in kindergarten when I had chicken pox (brought home from the hospital by newborn sister), but after that I was never sick. Really. My siblings were rarely sick either, and there were 6 of us. My parents were not the type to take us out of school for vacation or to let us have mental health days, so I went to school, day in and day out. My high school didn’t have a senior ditch day, although my mother would have made me go to school if it did. I never viewed it as an accomplishment, and no perfect attendance awards were given. But it is possible to go through school without getting sick. FWIW, in 25 years, except for scheduled maternity leave and scheduled vacation, I missed only one day of work - due, of all things, to a really bad sunburn. I still don’t get sick. At one of the law firms I worked for, they gave perfect attendance awards to staff (other than lawyers, so I didn’t get one!) who had perfect attendance for a quarter. I do think it encouraged people to come to work and spread germs. Luckily I didn’t have to worry - the germs somehow always avoided me.</p>
<p>I was like you mdoc, a “flat chart” during my childhood, one strep throat kept me home in first grade, but then until I wanted to skip in high school senior year, I just was never that sick. (I did do half days though with appt’s) Over 20 years of work, I might have had a handful of real sick days, others were planned ahead and “personal days”.
My son went 10 years I think without being out sick, my daughter about the same, my other daughter had asthma and had a few days off a year.
I don’t think of it as an accomplishment, just “good genes”, but my son said, going to school when he just wanted a day off, kept him an employee like that also. He is well liked because he never calls in sick and many others do, many times just to do something else.
I told my twins when they were really burnt out the end of this year, a “mental health” day is okay if you aren’t missing much, but so far, they only took one.</p>
<p>I think this type of award is insane and the parents are irresponsible. My kids had plenty of classmates who never took a sick day – usually at the insistence of their parents. They came to school with high fevers or vomiting and exposed everyone else. There were other kids who really didn’t want to miss school because they didn’t feel sick, even with a low fever. Though they may have felt fine, I still think it was irresponsible for the parents to allow them to attend and expose others with a fever or having vomited earlier that morning.</p>
<p>Technically she doesn’t have thirteen years of perfect attendance - she missed school for a band trip except it didn’t count as an absence. Personally I think it’s sad that she wanted this so bad that she would have skipped a marching band trip to China if she hadn’t gotten ‘written assurance’ that it wouldn’t count as an absence.</p>
<p>I had perfect attendance in HS and no one said anything about it- really, I wasn’t ever ill during those years. I also haven’t missed a day of work since I returned fulltime a few years ago.
I don’t think it’s an accomplishment though. Believe me, I’m a school nurse and i don’t think anyone should come to school ill. I often wonder about the strength of my immune system with all the bugs I’m exposed to day in and out. I do wash my hands incessently however.</p>
<p>Count me in as not impressed. Showing up every day really has nothing to do with the academic achievement in school. To be honest - and call my cynical - I’m not sure why we recognize perfect attendance. Like other posters have said… it means you showed up, and nothing more. ESPECIALLY if you have an ordinary or weak immune system (like me, for example - I usually missed 20 days per year from being sick, not even for other reasons!). So my friend Iz with the constant cold and the parents who insisted on perfect attendence - thank you for the flu in third grade and strep TWICE A YEAR in middle school. Obviously, not every person who has perfect attendance gets sick! Then again (call my cynical), I’m praying for the day that we recognize hard work and achievement instead of giving out an A for effort!</p>
<p>Another not impressed one here! And it’s not just because of immune system issues…</p>
<p>My mother was a teacher and a HS college counselor. There were some days (in MS/HS) she would just look at me in the morning and say “what do you have going on today?” If I had a test or something big…fine. But if there was nothing crucial going on she would tell me to stay home. She was a firm believer in occasional “mental health days” …mainly because she KNEW I was a A/B+ student who was the overly conscientious, try-to-hard type that needed to be forced into a break. </p>
<p>You have to know and trust your child to be able to do this - but I can tell you it was the best thing she ever did. She NEVER asked me the night before (therefore “letting” me postpone assignments), so when it did happen (probably 2-3 times a year) - all the work was done and I was just able to stay home and “veg” (altho that was not a term we used then!).</p>
<p>I have occasionally done this with my sons, but because we were overseas and lived within walking distance of school - I was more likely to let them miss their morning classes and go in about 10.</p>
<p>I had a friend in high school who got the perfect attendance award (for four years of high school) at graduation. She had a high-achieving older sister who was two years ahead of us. Older sister was salutatorian and got several other awards at graduation. My friend was determined to get an award at graduation. She was very open about coming in sick because she was aiming for that award. We all thought she was crazy…there were some issues in that family.</p>
<p>“I like to think this is a nice, lighthearted story…”</p>
<p>Guess not!</p>
<p>I know people will say it is different, but I wish the same parents that believe in keeping your kids home in school when sick or having an “off day” would have done that in daycare/nursery school". When I worked in that area for a few years, most were upper-middleclass parents that sent there children to school pumped up with tylenol or cold medicine rather than miss work. I would call them to say their child was vomiting etc. and sometimes numerous calls were made before anyone answered.
Many children, if they could tallk, would tell me they threw up or “Mommy gave me pills because I was warm”. I understand as a parent the desire to work and not lose your job, but until a child is old enough to be alone, I bet a lot of working parents overlook things and send them to school. As one parent told me honestly, “even a half day is better than nothing”.</p>
<p>I’m also not impressed with perfect-attendance. School nurses aren’t very impressed, either, I’m sure. The advent of ibuprofen made perfect attendance more attainable, since it’s longer-acting than acetaminophen. </p>
<p>I wonder which school systems have perfect attendance awards for teachers? ; - )</p>
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<p>Your mom sounds just like my mom! There would be a lot of Monday mornings when I’d roll over and she’d call from downstairs, “Go back to sleep. You don’t have to go to school today.” About half the time I actually WANTED to go (until high school, anyway), but the other half I was thankful. Then again, my mom does a lot of unorthodox things that are obviously “bad parenting”. I was reading on another message board that other parents wouldn’t DREAM of letting their kids drive in a parking lot without a learner’s permit, and that a mother FLIPPED OUT when the driver’s instructor suggested that the son get some practice before doing behind the wheel driving. I’m like… laws are great, but are you actually letting them DICTATE your life? Geez!</p>
<p>No comment on the attendance issue, but I loved the play on words with the “Here here”…lol!!</p>
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I wonder which school systems have perfect attendance awards for teachers?
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Now that would merit a car! :D</p>
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<p>My mom was a pretty bad influence on my school attendance. If we had a dentist appointment, she’s make it for the early afternoon then we’d shop afterward. In HS (in the days before VCRs), if one of her favorite old movies was on TV during the day, she’d try to talk me into skipping school to watch it with her (I always declined.) One day I skipped school to pick strawberries with her - returned after my “sick” day with such a sunburn!</p>
<p>It’s awesome that these kids do value being in school, although it’s better if they are sick that they are home. </p>
<p>But too many kids could care less about school. My son has classmates who miss 20, 30, sometimes 40 days a year. Not for illness. Just did not want to go to school that day. Or felt like starting the weekend early. Or needed a day to recover from the weekend. And yes, they will graduate on time, too. What a stress they place on teachers who stay all hours to offer makeup tests or must grade assignments that are weeks old. These are the same kids who will whine and complain if they did not get into a college or land a job they wanted.</p>
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<p>I had a secretary like that. Her skills were excellent but she called in sick about 30 days a year…not with a chronic condition, not because of surgery - just constant, isolated things like allergies, headache, etc. If her cat was under the weather, she’d stay home with it. Personnel finally fired her because the other staff members could not believe what she was getting away with. I always wondered what her home life was like as a child that created such a person.</p>
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There aren’t attendance requirements to get the class credit?</p>
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<p>I’m pretty lax on the whole attendance thing, so keep that in mind. I guess it was different in my school, because even though our late policies / attendance policies weren’t strict, it wasn’t really any more work for the teacher. In our school, there are two kinds of kids who miss school - the ones who won’t take the test anyways and the ones who get straight As. What I mean is, no one really missed a big test. But if that were the case, usually you could make it up during your cluster course periods (like, the classes you had to take for your “career cluster” that no one really cared about). So tests may have been a problem, but none of my teachers ever gave me make up work and none of them would grade anything more than a day old. So that’s kind of weird to me.</p>
<p>At my school, there was no attendance requirement to miss class credit. And for the record / full disclosure, according to my transcript, my AVERAGE number of absences per year was 26, with the highest being 38 (I had the flu in third grade) and the lowest being 10 (it was kindergarten, after all…). I think that missing school is a lot different than missing work. If you can’t work from home, you are going to miss something and the place is going to miss you. In discussion and lecture based college (or even high school) courses, you are going to miss something. At school, where reading/collaborating with friends/completing assignments a day late is easy, missing some time isn’t a big deal.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. Do you take your two weeks vacation at work? A lot of people do. Kids have summer vacation and long breaks, sure, but it’s essentially the same concept. That said, I’m not standing up for really bad attendance (like mine), I’m just pointing out that it isn’t the end of the world to take a couple of mental health days - especially if you get good grades. As per the thread, I’m just not impressed by perfect attendance. However, those kids with perfect attendance will probably be 100+ hour per week multi-millionaire iBankers while I’m cruising at $75,000 taking my two weeks’ vacation every year.</p>
<p>While I’d never encourage a kid with something contagious to go to school (or work), I think that teaching kids that showing up at school, work, etc. unless you are truly ill is a good life lesson. Teaching kids to suck it up if they are a bit tired after a late night or sore after a hard workout the day before will serve them well in college (when Mom isn’t there) and on the job.</p>
<p>Over the years, I’ve managed large groups of employees, and the best, most motivated performers were almost always those who took very few sick days and then only for good reason. The employees who racked up a dozen or more sick days in a year (barring things like major illness or surgery) were rarely star performers even when they were in the office. (Among the latter group, Mondays and Fridays accounted for way more than the predicted 40% of their days off - big surprise?)</p>
<p>I do think “perfect attendance” awards can get problematic when a kid is reluctant to attend a legitimate outside activity for fear that his/her chance of winning will go away.</p>
<p>Excessive truancy is the other end of the spectrum. This is a big problem for part of the student population at many high schools and a big impediment to learning, test scores, etc. It seems unlikely that a chronically absent student will be motivated by a perfect attendance award, particularly since one missed day removes all motivation to keep showing up.</p>