A few area seniors near 13 years of perfect attendance
If Woody Allen is right that “80 percent of success is just showing up,” the handful of graduates who manage to make it from kindergarten through 12th grade without missing a single day have a leg up on the future.
What does it take to not miss a day of school — ever?
“It’s just a matter of if you are able to get up every day and just do it,” said Sarah Buckingham, 18, of Columbus, who plans to do just that until Bishop Hartley High School’s graduation on June 3.
If Hartley 12th-graders are happy with their grades, they aren’t required to attend for final exams in the last weeks of school. But Buckingham will be there. She has a stash of crossword puzzles and books
for her “free senior week of study hall,” as she called it.
A spot check around Franklin County revealed that, although it probably happens every year, it’s still relatively rare. Officials at the Dublin, South-Western and Gahanna-Jefferson districts checked their records and couldn’t find any members of the Class of 2017 who have made it with zero absences.
According to Hilliard schools, Olivia Elton at Hilliard Darby High School hasn’t missed a day, and there might be others in the area.
Last week, Columbus’ Centennial High School recognized William Flaws Jr. for perfect high-school attendance. Although Columbus City Schools don’t have the records to verify this all the way back through elementary school, Flaws and his parents say he made it all 13 years without missing a day and received an award certificate
from Gables Elementary for perfect attendance.
Both Flaws and Buckingham say they were lucky enough to be ill on weekends, if they were at all. Both said they are abnormally healthy.
“I was the kind of kid, even if we had a snow day, I would walk down the street to make sure that school wasn’t open,” Flaws said.
His father, William Flaws Sr., said that his wife, Amy, would drive their son to Ridgeview Middle School in the mornings because the boy didn’t trust the school bus to be on time.
“He would take (the bus) home, but he wouldn’t take it there,” Flaws Sr. said.
One time, when the power went out at home and his mom couldn’t get the car out of the garage, the son said, he frantically called friends seeking a ride, making it to Ridgeview minutes before the morning bell.
“I’m like, ‘I have to at this point,’” he said of keeping the streak going.
He’ll spend senior skip day
later this month at school, he said.
He will attend Ohio State University next fall with a goal of becoming a statistician for a sports organization. He hopes to keep perfect attendance at OSU. “We’ll see,” he said.
Buckingham remembers being motivated by a perfect-attendance award in first grade and the praise that came with it.
St. Catharine School, a Catholic K-8 school on the East Side, didn’t explicitly recognize Buckingham for never missing a day in nine years. But the school did give her an award for politely thanking the cafeteria workers every day of every school year. Everyone knew what that meant.
Principals of both schools confirmed that she was there every day.
“To do this is quite remarkable, and she’s a great kid to boot,” Bishop Hartley Principal Mike Winters said. He encourages students who are truly sick, however, to stay home to avoid making other students sick.
Buckingham’s mother, Amy Adams, doesn’t know whether her daughter’s sterling attendance record led to better grades and tenacity, or vice versa.
“Definitely the drive is there in terms of wanting to be a good student,” her mother said.
Buckingham takes an advanced class schedule while holding down an after-school job at Graeter’s Ice Cream in Bexley. She’s a National Merit Finalist and earned a score of 33 out of possible 36 on the ACT. She is to attend Ohio State next fall as an exploratory major in the honors program.
Will she go to every class at OSU?
“We’ll have to see when that comes,” Buckingham said. “I’m sure if I have a 7 a.m. lecture, it will be tempting to be at least a few minutes late.”