A rather large percentage of Central high school’s students are absent every day. I believe it’s twenty percent. What is one solution that is being practiced at Central? Bribe the kids! That’s right, if you’re a student at central High, and you come into school everyday, you get 100 smackaroons at the end of the school year! I guess this does boost the attendance rate, since many people I know haven’t been absent once during the whole school year. Another thing this policy does is make it seem like our current administration is making headway with the attendance issue. What good will bribing kids to go to school do? In my opinion, nothing. Nothing except to get them to expect rewards for doing things that are in their best interests. Besides, most kids end up getting screwed and end up receiving no money over some tiny, insignificant thing. Such as being late. That was, you could say, the fine print that ended up pissing off a lot of kids last year. They were never told that lateness counted as attendance. A friend of mine has been in school every single day this year, hasn’t been late either because he was one of the ones that got screwed over last year. Now he’s decided to bunk school a couple of times a week because a substitute teacher marked him as absent, when he was in fact present. Nobody is willing to fix the mistake, so he’s pissed he won’t be getting his 100 bucks. There’s a lesson in that. The system doesn’t work.
Sophak Sam was in school everyday, sick or not. There was a few time when I asked him if he was going. He'd always say, "There's nothing to do but I'm gonna go just to get that money..." The same school that bribed him to stay in their fine, extremely wonderful facility is also the same school that screwed him over! He recieved his report card and noticed that there was an absent marked on his record. He went to the guidance office to see what was going on. They told him, "Sorry, there was a sub teaching that day....", "...There's nothing we can do..." What the hell? Go over to the damn computer and type "0" for absence you stupid fool! He told his friends and teachers about this issue. They see him everyday. Sophak's being in school is not the issue. Everyone appears to agree with that. It's the fact that administration won't correct the mistake that they made! They are robbing this student of his $100. Now, he has no more motivation to maintain his perfect attendance. All thanks to the wonderful learning facility, Central High School and it's amazing administration. Bribery and robery; more things we can associate the Administration with.
Eliazar Velasquez
