In an effort to highlight the importance of regular attendance, Bonneville Principal Julie Neilson offered students who missed two days or less in the last month of the school year the opportunity to dunk her in a dunk tank.

On Wednesday, that offer came to fruition on the school’s playground amid loud cheers of, “Dunk her! Dunk her!”

In a press release from the Ogden School District Wednesday, Neilson said that regular attendance is something that has been heavy on the district’s mind.

“Daily attendance is one of the most important factors for student success, especially for at-risk students,” she said. “Unfortunately, students who are the most at-risk are often the students who struggle the most to maintain daily attendance. We have some students who really have to make an effort to overcome trauma and other significant challenges. I believe that our students who put in that effort deserve recognition. And if getting dropped into a tank of water helps provide some students the extra incentive they need to show up every day, I think that’s worth it.”

The release adds that 55% of students in the Ogden School District qualify as economically disadvantaged.

“At Bonneville Elementary School 68% of students are economically disadvantaged,” the release said. “Ogden School District actively monitors attendance to identify students with the potential for chronic absenteeism, missing more than two days of school per month, and works directly with families to identify challenges, provide support and offer connections to resources.”

Neilson told the Standard-Examiner that this event comes at a crucial time.

“The end of the year is specifically important with end-of-year testing and all of the things that are going on,” she said. “We decided that one of the best ways to do it was an event like this.”

She said around 200 students — half of the student population at Bonneville, according to Neilson — who had a 95% attendance rate throughout April and May were eligible to try and dnk her during the event. Each of the eligible kids were given two attempts.

She said the school has held similar events in the past at the end of the year to encourage high-attendance, but this was the first year utilizing a dunk tank.

Neilson said the impacts of being absent build up over time.

“If kids are not at school, then they can’t learn, so the first step is getting your kids to school — that’s the most important thing,” she said. “Our students who miss school are missing a lot of good learning and information. It’s interesting because parents go, ‘Oh, you know, they’re just gone one day.’ One day puts kids eight hours behind, so students are always struggling to get caught up.”

Jer Bates, Ogden School District director of communications, told the Standard-Examiner attendance is one of the district’s key initiatives, especially with younger students.

“It’s really important to have students build that foundation that hey can continue to add on to year after year,” he said. “If a student gets off track while they’re very young, it becomes, year after year, that much more difficult to help them make up that gap in their education and get back no track.”

He said the district tracks attendance at all of its schools and has several intervention and support systems available for students and their families.

“We’re being much more proactive in terms of identifying students who might be at risk for what we call chronic absenteeism — missing two or more days each month,” he said.

Neilson said she saw the dunk tank incentive as being a success.

“We have seen an increase in attendance this last month or so than we have through the whole year,” she said.