High School Students Can Earn Up to $1000 for Perfect Attendance!
January 9, 2025
High School Students,
DPSCD is excited to launch our “Perfect Attendance Pays” initiative as students return from Winter Break! The District will provide high school students with the opportunity to earn a gift card valued at $200 every time they have perfect attendance during a two-week cycle (10 school days in a row) starting January 6-17. The two-week cycles will run through March 21, giving qualifying students an opportunity to earn up to $1000 in gift cards (see table below).
| Cycle | Perfect Attendance Dates (10 school days) | Electronic Gift Card Issue Date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | January 6- January 17 | January 31 |
| 2 | January 20-31 | February 14 |
| 3 | February 3-14 | February 28 |
| 4 | February 24-March 7 | March 21 |
| 5 | March 10-March 21 | April 4 |
To qualify for perfect attendance, students must attend every hour of the school day. District-approved field trips count as attendance. Attendance will be monitored through the central office team based on attendance entered into PowerSchool by your teacher of record. At the end of each two-week cycle, the central office team will run the report of all students who had perfect attendance. Then, the central office will issue the electronic gift cards to the DPSCD email address of the qualifying students within 10 school days.
As you should know, attending school every day matters! In fact, DPSCD students are three to five times more likely to be at and above grade-level performers on state assessments and to be college-ready if they miss 18 or fewer days of school a year. Because student average daily attendance and chronic absenteeism in our District are most challenged at the high school level, we are thinking out of the box and offering you direct payment for improved attendance during the months (January-March) when student attendance suffers the most and when teaching and learning is most critical.
FAQs
Why is the District funding the Attendance Incentive?
The District is funding this initiative in an effort to provide additional support to high school students, who often have many competing priorities and challenges, that can create barriers to regular attendance.
How can a student check their own attendance?
Students can check their attendance in the PowerSchool Student Portal.
If a student has an excused absence, does it count as “present”?
No. Any absence excused or unexcused counts as an absence and the student will not qualify for the perfect attendance incentive during that 2-week cycle.
What if the District is closed, how does that count toward attendance?
If the District is closed, the school day does not count in the 2-week cycle (ie. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day).
If a student is enrolled and attending a course at a Career Technical Center (Breithaupt, Golightly or Randolph) will their attendance count as present?
Yes. Students who are enrolled in a course at one of our CTC’s must be present during their AM or PM session in order to qualify for perfect attendance.
How do dual enrollment and work-based learning factor into perfect attendance?
When a student is scheduled into dual enrollment or work-based learning courses during the school day, the teacher of record is responsible for submitting attendance into PowerSchool. If a student is present during their dual enrollment or work-based learning course during the regular school day, they should be marked as present and that attendance counts toward their perfect attendance during the 2-week cycle. If a student is absent from their dual enrollment or work-based learning course, they would be marked absent and would not qualify for the perfect attendance incentive for that 2-week cycle.
If a student does not have perfect attendance during one of the 2-week cycles, can they still earn the incentive during another 2-week cycle?
Yes. The perfect attendance challenge resets after every 2-week cycle.
Can students receive cash funds instead?
Cash funds are not an option. Also, it is prohibited to use gift cards to extract cash through platforms such as Cash App, PayPal, Apple Cash, Venmo, or Google Wallet. If the students attempt to transfer cash from their gift card, it will result in the transaction being declined and a hold being placed on the card by the issuer. This means the student will not be able to utilize the funds without calling the issuer to remove the hold.
Is this a raffle incentive program?
No. This is not a raffle. Every student who meets the perfect attendance requirement during a 2-week cycle will earn a gift card.
