My child may never earn a perfect attendance award. I'm fine with that.

Whenever I schedule an appointment during the school day, I feel guilty.

I ask for their latest available appointment.

If that doesn’t work, I pull up the school calendar.

Then I start doing the ridiculous parent math: How long is the drive?

Can I get them back before the final bell?

Is there some magical way to make a 10:30 appointment happen without blowing up half the school day?

I’m a mother in rural North Carolina.

Healthcare providers aren’t always five minutes down the road, and appointments that fit perfectly between school dismissal and dinner aren’t exactly falling from the sky.

Sometimes the appointment you need is at 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday.

I still feel guilty about it almost every time.

I know how quickly one missed class can turn into a missing assignment, which then becomes another assignment they don’t understand because they missed the first one.

But I also have to take care of my child.

Sometimes those two responsibilities bump right into each other.

And that’s probably why perfect-attendance awards have always bothered me.

I understand why schools care about attendance.

They need instruction, routine, relationships with teachers and classmates, and all the little pieces of school that are hard to recreate at home.

When a child is missing a lot of school, I absolutely think families should be supported in figuring out why and helping that child get back into a routine.

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But perfect attendance is something different.

An unbroken attendance record isn’t necessarily a measure of how hard a child tried.

Kids don’t choose when they get the flu.

They don’t control when the specialist finally has an opening.

They can’t give their parents paid time off, fix the car when it won’t start, make the school bus come down a road it doesn’t serve, or move a doctor’s office 45 minutes closer to home.

The certificate may have a child’s name printed on it, but there’s a whole lot of family circumstance behind that streak.

I work for myself, which gives me more flexibility than many parents have.

I can move things around when an appointment pops up.

That doesn’t mean the lost work hours don’t matter, but I can usually make it happen.

A parent working an hourly job may be making a completely different calculation.

Can I afford to lose three hours of pay?

How many times have I already had to leave early this year?

And that’s before we even get into transportation, housing instability, access to healthcare, chronic illness, or any of the other things families may be dealing with that nobody sees when the certificates get handed out.

They just aren’t evidence that one child tried harder than another.

As parents, we already have to make enough judgment calls when our kids are sick.

Is this a stay-home sick or a send-them-and-see sick?

Are they actually exhausted or just really, really not interested in going to math?

We’re also told to keep our kids home when they’re contagious because sending them to school sick exposes others to illness.

Then we turn around and give an award for never missing a day.

One fever in October can knock a child out of the running for an award handed out in June.

I don’t want to hesitate before keeping my sick child home because some part of my brain is thinking about an attendance record.

And I definitely don’t want my child learning that dragging yourself through school when you feel awful is proof that you’re more dedicated.

Sometimes staying home is the responsible choice.

Sometimes missing school for an appointment is the responsible choice.

And sometimes the impressive part isn’t never missing school at all, it’s coming back.

I’m not suggesting schools stop caring whether kids come to school.

Chronic absenteeism is a real problem, and families dealing with it may need more support, not less.

But perfection doesn’t have to be the prize.

Recognize the kid whose attendance improved from one grading period to the next.

Acknowledge the student who had a rough stretch and worked their way back into a routine.

Despite my views, I know I’ll keep doing the school-day appointment math.

I’ll keep asking for the latest opening.

I’ll keep trying to minimize what my child misses and help them catch up when missing school can’t be avoided.

And I’ll probably still feel a little guilty every time.

My child may never earn a perfect-attendance award.

I’d much rather they learn that taking care of themselves is responsible, staying home when they’re contagious is considerate, and showing up again after a hard stretch is something worth being proud of.