Lodi High grad never missed a day of school

LODI — Julian Howe has maintained perfect attendance in school for 13 years of his life. From kindergarten through 12th grade, he never missed a day.

Howe attended Lodi High School, Millswood Middle School, and Lakewood Elementary School with an absence-free record at all three schools.

Perfect attendance can be attributed to Julian’s older brother Addison, and his mother Corinne.

“Early on, my brother would never want to miss school so he would push for family vacations made around the school schedule. My brother would end up getting sick so he did miss every once in a while, but I piggybacked off that (vacation planning) and didn’t get sick; or it would be on weekends or over break, which was both lucky and unlucky,” Julian said.

“He never missed school because he was never ill (during the week),” said mom Corinne. “If he wasn’t feeling well he either didn’t complain about it or was sick on weekends. When he spent time at urgent care it was normally a Friday or Saturday and if he went on antibiotics then he was good enough to go [to school] on Monday morning,” Corinne said.

Corinne is a schoolteacher which also had an impact on Julian’s attendance.

“I have to be at work, so we’ve always been on the same schedule. That routine made it very easy,” she said.

Howe’s perfect attendance applies to school and sports. He played football for two seasons, ran track one year and played badminton for three seasons.

Another task Howe has accomplished since kindergarten is piano. He has had private lessons and yearly recitals which he believes helped with discipline.

“It was also good to help clear my mind,” he said.

Howe’s discipline is also evident in his tardy record as he has been late just one time.

“The only tardy I had this year, only tardy ever, was between second and third period because chemistry lab went longer than it should have,” he said.

Howe’s mom was not completely surprised that Julian made it this far, mainly because she also had perfect attendance from kindergarten up to sixth grade.

Howe surprised himself by making it a goal sophomore year and sticking with it.

“Senior year was the most difficult as friends would want to go skiing and miss class.”

However, now that Julian has put in his time he has chosen to end the perfect attendance record in college, saying “I am tired of it.”

He plans to attend Boise State in the fall and to major in chemistry.

“If there’s an opportunity for a good day of skiing at Boise, I might miss one or two classes.”