For mom of two Amber Cather, making sure daughter Natalie, 15, and son Oliver, 6, never miss a day of school isn’t all-important.
If the kids are sick — running a fever, coughing, doubled over with stomachache — she’d rather keep them at home than send them out the door miserable, or even contagious.
But Cather’s decision to occasionally cut her offspring some slack means neither will ever be in the running for the annual perfect-attendance award at school.
For Natalie, a high school sophomore, the reward would mean not having to take her final exams. For Oliver, in kindergarten, it’d be a shiny new bike.
And Cather’s OK with that.
In fact, she’s wary of folks who prioritize perfect attendance over their child’s well-being.
“I don’t trust parents of kids who get perfect attendance awards,” Cather, 41, a model-turned-wedding photographer from Blue Ridge, Georgia, told The Post with a laugh.
“Most school-age children get sick throughout the year,” she continued, noting that her son is currently absent due to a cold that she doesn’t want spreading to his classmates. “I think people are just sending their kids to school sick because they want the award … and I don’t agree with that.”
A growing number of educators and parents are eager to see the honors abolished, saying they deliver mixed messages to kids — don’t come in if you’re sick, but if you do, you’ll be rewarded.
A report from eye-health researchers MyVision.org published in September found that 1 in 5 parents encourage their kids to go to school even if they don’t feel well.
The survey, which canvassed more than 1,000 moms and dads of children between the ages of 2 and 17, also found that 70% of parents send their little ones to school if they have a runny nose and 27% do the same if their child is suffering from a sore throat.
The study noted “lack of child care” and limited paid time off are the top reasons parents force their sick pups out of the house. (The promise of taking home a reward for perfect attendance was not listed as a common motive.)
But, owing to the fact that daily attendance is a key factor in funding — namely in states such as California and Texas, where K-12 institutions receive between $6,000 and $21,000 per pupil if kids seated at their desks each day — parents like Cather fear that schools use attendance awards as incentive to ensure hefty bonuses for the district, sans regard for students’ health.
“After [the pandemic], how are we rewarding students for something that’s beyond their control?” one dad of three asked in a viral social media post under the hashtag #PerfectAttendance, where thousands of parents are calling for an end to the award.
“I realize it all comes down to funding,” he continued, “but should we really be encouraging parents to send their sick kids to school?”
Moms and dads online also argue that, in addition to physical ailments like COVID, a cold or the flu, students as young as 5 should be able to take mental and emotional health days off from school without fear of being deemed ineligible for a coveted prize at the end of a school year.
They also argue the award is inherently rooted in ableism, favoring traditionally healthy children over those with chronic illnesses and disabilities.
Some schools are already leaning away from issuing the customary accolade.
“It’s sending mixed messages if you’re telling people to stay home when they have a fever — which is really important — then the next day having an announcement that you’re offering a prize for being there every day,” Bryan Calvert, the principal of Bear Creek Elementary School in Euless, Texas, told EducationWeek of the hotly contested kudos, which the school stopped handing out several years back.
But pro-perfect-attendance award parents, like dad of four Joseph Ferris, known as @PoppaFerrBear online, maintain that receiving the recognition is an achievement that shouldn’t be abolished simply because it comes as a challenge for others.
“Don’t stop giving [perfect attendance] awards,” he said in a viral TikTok rant. Instead, Ferris suggests schools create additional award categories, so that students of all capabilities would have the chance to be acknowledged for their academic achievements.
“Reward more accomplishments,” the father added, “don’t diminish the accomplishments [of others].”
And his online viewers agreed, with one faction arguing that although some children are physically unable to participate in athletics, schools are not banning extracurricular sports — so attendance awards shouldn’t be nixed due to some children having medical challenges.
But Cather, newly in remission after being diagnosed with breast cancer last year, feels that removing the bait of an attendance award grants families the freedom to manage their own weekday schedules.
“I want my kids to go to school and get a good education,” she said, “but sometimes, I want to be able to have family time or give them the opportunity to rest when they need it.”
Cather continued, “Parents should have the most control over their kids’ attendance, and when their presence in school is incentivized, it can cause [unnecessary stress] on them if they’re just not feeling up to it.”
