No absences, no tardies. Besides theatre and athletics, having perfect attendance is the one thing that, for me, defined high school. I’ll probably be remembered at my 10th high school reunion as “that kid that was always there”. I’ll be sitting with my crew, my old teammates and friends at the reunion, anyway.
So how did you do it? Did you consciously decide on the first day of high school to never be late for a single class for the next four years?
I can’t really say that I set out to do it, but once I got my name printed in the student bulletin, I figured I go for it! Then I was walking a little faster through the halls, not talking to anyone on the way. My locker was at a central location, which helped. I had reliable transportation and a desktop atomic clock to wake me up in the morning.
In retrospect, I guess I wanted to be the anti-Ferris Bueller.
I did have a few perfect attendances while in elementary school, but I never got sick, so there was that. But high school? Hell, I used to skip classes to go see movies.
I think I did. I can remember staying home sick when I was a little kid, but I can’t remember staying home sick after 6th grade.
How did I do it? I dunno. If I came up to you on a day you were healthy and asked how you did it, what would you say? I just did it for a few hundred days in a row.
Actually a lot more. Never got sick in college or grad school. Rarely got sick since then.
There was a girl who sat at my lunch table my junior year who was bucking for a perfect attendance certificate and consequently once gave me a nasty cold which turned into a sinus infection that lasted six weeks, and then gave me the flu which led into bronchitis which lasted from February to late April. But she got her certificate, dammit! And I’m sure that it has had a meaningful and important impact on her life after high school. :rolleyes:
On paper I didn’t…but in reality I did. (although I did get tardies…that doesn’t count).
The only times I missed I was purposely taken out for medical things and/or random occurrences (plays, volunteering etc.)
I achieved it by NEVER being sick, and being way too much of a goody-two-shoes to skip. Something that is amazing about my body is I have an amazing immune system. Save for food poisoning a couple years ago (thank you Paradise Cafe) I have not been sick since 7th grade (stomach flu). And I mean NEVER been sick. No colds, no flus, no mono, strep throat, nothing.
Also I am a total wuss and buck to authority. So I never faked it to get out. Also my parents knew I never got sick and probably wouldn’t have bought it anyway. Last but not least, when I was younger I wasn’t allowed to miss school unless a fever or throwing up, so I never had much opportunity to try.
I don’t believe I ever had a tardy. I’m sure I was sick, though, and my parents took us out for a couple of extra Thanksgiving vacation days a couple of times.
My daughter made it through kindergarten through 5th grade without a tardy or absence.
I was never tardy (except for excused things, like dentist appoitments, etc…) (for most of HS I did extracurriculars that met before classes started at 7:00 or 7:30,) and I never skipped any classes (we had a small HS, and there were good odds that if you were in school at all that day and skipped class, someone in the class you skipped had an earlier or later class with you and you’d get in trouble…)
I’m trying to think if I ever missed a day from being sick in HS, and I don’t think I was. But we didn’t have any “perfect attendance” award, so there you go. I did miss whole days, though, but they were all excused. A class trip to Italy required us to leave the Friday before April break officially started, a weekend trip to Boston with my Boy Scout troop, etc…
I went to school with a kid who never missed a day of school from kindergarten to high school graduation. AND he was on Bozo and was chosen for Bozo’s buckets! Talk about a charmed life.
My high school gave an extra 2 points to your grade point average each report card for every subject (every 6 weeks) if you had perfect attendance. So for example, if you earned a 91 (a B) the extra 2 points would mean you actually scored a 93 for the marking period (an A). Getting the extra two points was a big goal of mine, I made it nearly every marking period and had 2 years of perfect attendance (yes, I was a dork). I am a pretty healthy person and I’m rarely sick.
After first semester of my senior year, I received a post card in the mail congratulating me on my perfect attendance. I skipped the day after I got that postcard, on principle.
I missed every day I could get away with without having to face serious consequences. If the rules said you could only miss 5 days and still pass the semester, I interpreted it as “Cool, I get 5 free days off” and acted accordingly.
Me too! I think I had 180 absences in my junior year and was going on another 100 in my senior year when my guidance counselor threw me in a program for kids who had issues going to school. Not the troublesome kids–that was another group. We all just had anxiety disorders or emotional issues. If we had no absences for a few weeks they let us out early on some Fridays.
I really just hated high school, so I didn’t go all that often. Plus, the crippling social anxiety that caused me to vomit all day once every two weeks didn’t help. I also got a not from my psych that excused me from gym. That was the best thing she ever did for me.
I will never understand the perfect attendance kids, but kudos to those who did it.
Not by a long shot. It never meant much to me. I was a smart student, and that was far more important to me than simply having my butt in the seat every day. I figured I was due a few days off each semester/year, so if I hadn’t been sick (which I often was, at least once a year), I’d complain of “not feeling well” now and then and ask to stay home. I got great grades, so my mom usually let me slide.
Even now, I get sick from time to time and need to stay at home. I’m kind of frail, as the name suggests…
I don’t think I had perfect attendance, but I came very close. I just didn’t get sick often, my mom would never, ever let me stay home from school of anything other than vomiting and fever…cramps were just part of life…and my parents did not believe in taking us out of school for anything like a vacation: not even for a half-day. And I was never tardy…I rode the bus, so I had no excuse to be late, and even when I started driving to school I had to be there early for a choir rehearsal, so I was always there. And I was never late to class (even with talking to people in the halls, stopping at the bathroom or trying to get a glimpse of some cute boy). I didn’t set it a a goal to always be there…but it was expected by my parents, and the kids who skipped or were tardy all the time seemed to always be in trouble for something or the other, and I didn’t need that kind of hassle. All my rule-breaking was subtle and so far under the radar that I got away with quite a lot and still looked good to the powers-that-be.