This topic has been on my mind for a while, even stemming back from my high school days. I had perfect attendance in high school, with the exception of one day. We had been out of school for snow days one week. It was blizzard-like in the STL. One day I woke up and asked my parents if we had school that day. They replied “no I don’t think so since it’s still a lot of snow outside.” The next day, I go to school and my friends are like “hey, why weren't you at school yesterday?” I’m like what do you mean? Come to find out, schools were back open on the day I missed. I was so mad, as I knew there was an award given out to students who had perfect attendance for all 4 years of high school. I was beyond heated. My track record was messed up. I was sick a lot in my youth during elementary and middle school, with pneumonia, chickenpox, and sinus issues, so never really had the chance to win a lot of Be There! Program stuff, so high school was my chance for redemption. If only I had an Accrued-Time-Off bank or what we call “Paid Time Off” (not necessarily with money though), and not talking about Parent Teach Organization (PTO).
Let's say, for every school year, you are automatically granted 2 PTO days that you can use anytime or can rollover to the next year if unused. If you use them, there is no penalty. If you exceed that amt of accrued time, then of course, regular rules apply toward your attendance. And how cool would it be for you to be able to cash in some of the days. For example, your Senior year of high school, you have accrued approx. 10 days. If each day is worth $10 and you really need some extra cash for Prom or Senior year activities or even to purchase some items for preparing for college, you can cash in 5 days and have $50 to spend, and the other 5 days you could use toward Spring break trip or to put toward your savings. Another idea would be to reward those students who have 10 days or more with some type of scholarship. How awesome would that be!
How challenging is it to schedule dr's visits or dentist appts that are not during business hours i.e. school hours? I say it is very challenging, especially if school is 8a-4p or you work from 8a-5p. I luckily found a dentist for the kids that have availability one Saturday out of the month, which is wonderful so they wont have to miss any hours of school for that. But for sick visits during the week, it really sucks that any hours missed goes against their attendance record. Heck, school is where they got the germs that made them sick, so why should they be penalized for it when told they should stay home until symptom-free. With the PTO time, they can use it with no worries. What do y'all think?
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