The school year is young but roughly 300 were rewarded with a popcorn party for having perfect attendance during the first week of school that started Aug. 24
"We don't want a lapse in any student's educational endeavors," said Ms. Voltz, East Campus director.
Achievement, especially in math, is very sensitive to attendance, and absence of even two weeks during one school year matters, according to a 2012 report on absenteeism in the nation's public schools.
The report, by Robert Balfanz and Vaughan Byrnes at Johns Hopkins University, said a school can have average daily attendance of 90 percent and still have 40 percent of its students chronically absent, because on different days, different students make up that 90 percent.
"My goal is that 98 percent or more of our students attend school every day," Ms. Voltz said. "That ties into our goal of excellence."