This is what my family did in the '90s. In the beginning, it was easy: we handed the teachers a note and we were on our way. As I got older, the school was less

This is what my family did in the '90s. In the beginning, it was easy: we handed the teachers a note and we were on our way. As I got older, the school was less cooperative, and focused on boosting attendance statistics. The ability of parents to request excused absences slowly declined. Just another casualty of Goodhart's law, it would seem.