That's so ridiculous. Shouldn't it up to the parents to decide if their kid can miss school? Certainly, for some kids it would put them behind, but for others it may not matter. I remember in my first year in high school, my sister was graduating high school, but she lived with my dad. We were going for the ceremony but it overlapped one day of finals for me. I was told that finals couldn't be made up per the board of education, but I didn't have a choice. I was 14 and my mom was taking me - end of story. Anyway, I just went, missed the first day of exams, then just ended up taking all six of my exams in one day by going to the teachers directly. ALL of them let me do it. I was a good student, and had no problem completing all of them early (we were given two hours for each spread across two days). There was no reason to penalize me over something like that. Yeah, I know that some parents aren't too responsible and might do things that would not be beneficial for their kids, but that kind of thing should be discussed with teachers, etc. These kind of "zero tolerance" rules are silly.