Warren Elementary School's parent teacher organization is planning to give a pizza party to the classrooms with the highest attendance; Moss Middle School is giving an extra ice cream treat to homerooms with the highest attendance - even principals will see a treat.

Tuesday will mark the second year the Kentucky Directors of Pupil Personal sponsors High Attendance Day. The annual event takes place throughout the state on Tuesday in hopes that all schools will participate in encouraging students to come to school.

“Last year, all public schools across the state participated,” said Jon Lawson, director of pupil personnel for Bowling Green City Schools. “This is an opportunity for us to stress the importance of attending school, and reward the schools that do have good attendance. We often pursue students who are not attending as they should, so this is a positive way of saying ‘thank you' to those who do while encouraging others to come.”

Schools throughout the state will compete for the highest average student attendance. The categories of competition will include elementary, middle and high schools. Winning schools will be announced within two weeks after High Attendance Day, and will receive a cash prize of $1 per student in the school with a minimum of $500 and a maximum of $1,500.

“Students of the winning schools get to have input on how that money can be spent,” Lawson said.

The event is held to promote the organization, said Rita Byrd, president of KDPP. But more importantly, the organization wants to stress that school attendance is critical for children. If students are not in school, they cannot learn to their full potential, she said.

“Good attendance is key to be successful in school,” Lawson said.

Schools are held accountable for attendance, said Lisa Gross, director of communications for the Kentucky Department of Education. Under the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, attendance counts toward a school's overall index score, she said.

“Also, a student cannot learn unless they're in school,” she said. “So being in school is key to learning, and learning is a good thing.”

Gross said attendance is the primary basis of how school districts are funded.

“So the higher the average daily attendance rate is, the higher funding will be,” she said.

From year to year, funding can be affected by average daily attendance.

“It's not about comparing district to district, but comparing yourself to yourself,” she said. “But if a lot of children are not attending school on a regular basis without a valid excuse, that's evidence of a problem in the school system.

“I don't think people understand at all that missing a day without a valid excuse has an impact on the student.”

Missing a day of valued instruction puts that student behind, and it creates bad work habits, especially when that child hits adult years, Gross said. She said modeling good work habits while a child is in school will help to build good work habits as children get older and enter the work force