Perfect attendance award, yay or nay?

[marthachick]

Way back when I was in school, we had one guy whose sister had made a deal with him that if he didn't miss any school in 12 years she would give him $200 or something like that. He would come to school vomiting or hacking and everything like that and infect all of us who then stayed home with our sickness. His mother would come and pick him up the minute he was counted present for the day. We really resented him making all of us sick.

With that being said, I realize not all perfect attendance kids do this. DS got perfect attendance 1 or 2 years but he didn't go to school sick.

 

[JennaDeeDooDah]

I received the K-12 perfect attendance award for never missing a day of school. My mother was a teacher. She would have never sent me to school sick. I'm a healthy person. I just didn't get sick. I mean, I would occasionally get allergies, but I'm not going to miss school for something that is not at all contagious and there is no way to get rid of it.

 

[ReneeA]

I can count on one hand the amount of times either of my children have ever gotten sick. They are 9 & 10 and have never been on antibiotics...their last checkup, their pediatrician asked if they had any medication allergies and was shocked when I told him they had never taken any. They have never missed any school due to illness so far.

I chalk it up to the fact that I work as a RN on a very germy part of the hospital...I wash well and strip down at the door, but I know I can't get every little bug. I have a gold quality immune system, and they must too.

 

[disneychic2]

On top of perfect attendance awards, my kids' high school let the seniors skip exams if their grades were a certain point average AND they hadn't missed any school that semester!! You better believe there were kids dragging into school sick!! Our rule was if there was a fever, they stayed home no matter how good they said they felt. Fortunately, our kids didn't get sick all that often, but when they were, they stayed home.

 

[punkin]

They only make a big deal about attendance because they get paid based on how many kids are in attendance every day. Our school instead of giving paper awards they get their name in a drawing at the end of the year based on attendance for all kinds of prizes including an old used car every year.

That said my son is Senior next year and he has not missed a day of high school for being sick because he has honestly not been sick in all that time. Well the one and only time was this year he came home sick the Friday before spring break but was fine by the time school went back. He has also never once won a prize for his attendance either.

I know some kids in our district from 6th grade up are afraid to miss school for any reason because the amount of homework they get on a daily basis can be insane and missing a day can make it hard to catch up.

Oh, yes! DD13 missed 3 days of school last week and the zeros for her missed assignments and the test she missed (a test the week before finals!!!) brought her Math average down 2 letter grades. Now, granted, she will have a chance to make up all that work so there won't be any zeros, but it is just amazing how much of it there is.

She was so nervous going back to school yesterday.

Maybe I should have sent her in with strep and gotten everyone sick.

 

[eliza61]

I think they are incredibly stupid awards and prove nothing other than what you said!!

LOL. My son recieved a 2500 dollar scholarship from my townships VWF for having perfect attendance.

I guess I'm happy we were incrediable stupid and you're right I have nothing to prove except my kid will make it through college 2.5K cheaper.

My kids were and still are pretty healthy, I can rarely remember them being sick. My oldest was a baseball player and wrestler from middle school through high school and was never injured and or sick.
Now he is in school and working part time. He works for a local chain retail store, they also reward their employees (monetarily) for not missing time. 15 months and he's never called out sick.

No one is advocating sending a kid to school sick but you definitely dont' have to denigrate the ones who do make this milestones.

How sad that good performance is denigrated but hey pull you kid out of school to take a vacation and Hey way to go!!

 

[Ginny Favers]

At my DD5's kindergarten graduation, each of the 10 kids got awards. Most Creative, Nicest Smile, Most Caring, Class Bookworm, Class Storyteller, etc. And then one got Perfect Attendance. I kept thinking, "Wow, that girl got jypped" because all the other awards were about WHO the kid was, and she only got recognition because her parents dragged her to school every day!

 

[mickeyboat]

I won perfect attendance awards when I was in school many years ago. I have not missed a day of work for personal sickness in years. We are just a family who does not get sick very often (knock on wood). I believe flu shots have helped keep healthy.

DD11 has won them a couple of times, too, before they did away with them a couple of years ago. She has the good fortune of getting sick on weekends and vacations. DD12 usually only misses a day or two each year. Neither DD has ever been sent to school when they should not have been (fever, vomiting), but they has been sent to school with the sniffles or feeling tired. They have only ever been sent home from school once - when the school secretary thought they had pink eye in pre-K.

Not every kid who has perfect attendance is going to school infecting everyone else.

 

[nchulka]

I always tell my kids that I feel so sorry for the kids that win those awards. I tell them I will be very disappointed if they ever get one because that just means we didn't find anything fun to do all year My kids always miss several days each year for vacations, and a few random days for fun stuff that is way more crowded when school is out!

 

[iheartdisney]

Some kids just have good immune systems! Growing up my sister and I got bronchitis every fall and spring. Little brother- nothing! And since he was the little brother, I brought home chicken pox before he was in school! lol! So he went all 13 years of school and only missed one day (Spring break senior year his flight home was cancelled!)

And FWIW, our district has a once a month Saturday school so if you have an absence your perfect attendance can be "earned back."

 

[supercarrie]

I hate them. I'm now almost 26, and still remember the award in middle school for perfect attendance, and how my best friend went to school HORRIBLY sick because she wanted to get it.

The best part was that the perfect attendance winners received beautifully made, personally engraved MEDALS, and the academic award winners got a flimsy piece of paper. I remember thinking...the faculty doesn't have their priorities in order. (Even at 13.)

 

[Pigeon]

I think they are stupid. If you are sick, you should be home, and I'm also in the camp that no kid is going to go that many years without getting sick. We don't do "mental health days" in our house, but the kids do get strep or other bugs from time to time.

And if by some freak of nature the kid actually never did get sick, I'd question exactly what you are rewarding, other than dumb luck.

 

[mom2rose&john]

Except for taking off for four days because of vacation my dd was never absent for illness this year. She just was healthy. She did have a cold, but never a fever, and yes I did send her to school. After her cold was over she kept the cough for two months. I took her to the doctor, after school hours, and they said it was post nasal drip and there was nothing they could do. It eventually stopped. She never said she felt that she was sick and wanted to stay home. I would let her stay home if she did want to. My ds, on the other hand, was sent home from school twice for ear infections. The first time the doctor said he didn't have a fever and I could send him back to school the next day if he felt up to it. Of course there was a field trip the next day and he wanted to go. I went on the field trip also so I felt that if he did take a turn for the worse I could always take him home (you are allowed to do this with a note to the principal). Nothing ever came of it and he had a great time and was pain free. The second time I kept him home and waited until he was fever free for 24 hours without medicine.

IMHO, unless they are vomiting or running a fever they can go to school. That being said, I think it is not really necessary if it is just a piece of paper. But, if it can get a nice scholarship as a PP stated, then go for it.

 

[krnlmustrd]

I received a perfect attendance award for all 12 years and the principal made a big announcement about how I was the only one to do it and it was embarrassing. While I was truly almost never sick, I did go to school a couple times with a runny nose. But the weird thing was, I did fake being sick one or two days so I didn't have to go to school. I'm not sure why those weren't counted. Perhaps the principal fudged things a bit so he could give someone the award.

 

[Minnesota!]

The only days my older son have missed were for WDW trips. The kid is NEVER sick. I can think of 2 - 3 times in his life he has been sick...and he will be 8 in a few weeks.

I don't care either way about the award....but to assume that a kid with perfect attendance only got it b/c they came to school sick is silly!

I went to grade/HS with a kid who got it for 13 years perfect attendance...and he literally was NEVER sick.

 

[MichelleVW]

Those awards make me so mad. My youngest DD was horribly sick for about a week with strep in 3rd grade, and while we were at the award program at the end of the year the teacher gave out an award to one little girl and said, "Mary had strep throat and STILL came to school" and then handed Mary her perfect attendance award....I wanted to Punch Mary's mom in the face!! How is it ok to send your contagious child to school and make MY child sick???

 

[Mkrop]

Of course there are kids who don't get sick. The kid down the street never misses school. I have never even seen him sniffle. I do think those kids are few and far between.

Many people on this thread think differently. They think that I must be sending my DSs to school with the plague when they truly got sick on weekends and holidays. Like I said I would prefer missing school, then not being able to do fun stuff over Christmas break but it is not how the cookie crumbled.

 

[iheartdisney]

Those awards make me so mad. My youngest DD was horribly sick for about a week with strep in 3rd grade, and while we were at the award program at the end of the year the teacher gave out an award to one little girl and said, "Mary had strep throat and STILL came to school" and then handed Mary her perfect attendance award....I wanted to Punch Mary's mom in the face!! How is it ok to send your contagious child to school and make MY child sick???

How do you know that YOUR child didn't give the bug to poor Mary? Kids are like walking petri dishes!

 

[Elinor Dashwood]

Those awards make me so mad. My youngest DD was horribly sick for about a week with strep in 3rd grade, and while we were at the award program at the end of the year the teacher gave out an award to one little girl and said, "Mary had strep throat and STILL came to school" and then handed Mary her perfect attendance award....I wanted to Punch Mary's mom in the face!! How is it ok to send your contagious child to school and make MY child sick???

That would've annoyed me too. Ridiculous that this girl was praised for coming to school with a contagious illness. I used to teach and there was nothing that made me more irritated than when parents sent their obviously sick kids to school. The poor things, they'd be feeling miserable, feverish and had the glassy eyes so I'd try my best to comfort them till mom or dad showed up. Then I'd wipe down my classroom like crazy. One time, we called this mom at work because her daughter was throwing up and miserable. She said she'd pick her up after work. Nope, the principle said to pick her up now and that she'd be waiting for her in the nurses office. Poor little girl, she said she'd thrown up that morning before school and still the mom brought her.

Even as a kid, I thought the perfect attendance award was lame. It wasn't anything I aspired to get. Sometimes you miss school for sickness or in my case, we went to Disney when I was 11. I'd take a couple days out of school to go to Disney over some perfect attendance award.

 

[ccgirl]

My son graduated tonight, finally. We have a Z name and there were seven hundred something kids. Yeah, do the math!
They gave an attendance award to two kids who hadn't missed a day of school in thirteen years. Again, do the math. How many days is that? All I could think of was how many kids they must have infected in their scholastic career? What are y'alls thoughts on this?

Hmm..interesting. My first though is that's great for them. I think a great accomlishment. I know I have to prod my DD to go to school some days.

In middle school my kid got that award.

At the time we were shocked. We honestly had no idea he hadn't missed a day.

I don't see how everyone automatically jumps to the conclusion that we must have sent him to school sick, but, I guess this IS the DIS.He never went to school sick.

Also, though, we don't believe in, and my kids don't even know, what mental health days are. They don't just stay home because they 'feel like it."

Bolded mine. I am happy for any child that gets an award. I really don't see why people have to make negative comments about it.

Guess what, I know plenty of kids without perfect attendance that still go to school sick. I know plenty of parents that took their sick children to WDW because, hey, they spent a lot of money on the trip. I know, it's different when you (a general you) send your child somewhere sick.