Emily Chan
Schools giving out awards to students is not something that’s unheard of. Students can earn prizes for academic achievements, sporting competitions, or for demonstrating qualities such as compassion, respect, and perseverance.
But there’s one award many schools hand out that one dad feels sends nothing but a terrible message to students. And that is the perfect attendance award.
A dad and TikToker who goes by the handle @speechprof is sharing his disbelief toward the fact that his son’s school was still offering these awards.
“In the current state of the world we live in, should we really be encouraging parents to send their sick kids to school?” he asked.
You would think the pandemic would’ve drilled into our brains what the risks of going to school sick might entail. But apparently, that is not the case since these awards still exist in schools.
The message that these so-called perfect attendance prizes are giving students is that they do not deserve an award just because they caught a cold.
There are many reasons why students may not have perfect attendance. First of all, some students may have chronic illnesses that prevent them from coming to school every day.
And kids often depend on their parents as transport to and from school. So whether they can get to school or not is entirely out of their hands.
Instead, @speechprof thinks that schools should be rewarding students for staying home when they’re ill because that’s the responsible thing to do.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
