At 9 a.m., Attendance Secretary Mary Howard is greeted by a pile of never-ending excuses, late arrivals, and early dismissal requests. 

At 9:30 a.m., students swarm in, and she prepares for mass attendance changes, all while juggling emails, ID checks, and late buses. 

In the afternoon, parents frantically call her to ask where their child is, and teachers urgently email her, asking her why a student isn’t in class. 

At 2:30 p.m., dismissal begins, and early release students crowd the window. 

At 3 p.m, she digs through data and timestamps to track down who left campus without checking out. As she pieces the puzzle pieces of attendance together all day, it’s a miracle if she gets a second to breathe. 

Yet, behind each phone call, each tardy slip, and each computer click in the system, is a familiar warmth that greets students each day. By forming lasting friendships with students built on empathy and accountability over the past four years, Howard has touched the hearts of many. 

With three windows up on her computer at all times, Howard spends the entire day manually writing passes, approving excuses for students entering late or leaving early, and changing attendance codes – tedious tasks that continuously pile up. 

In addition to maintaining attendance records, Howard also plays the role of an investigator, scrutinizing over the cells of student attendance, analyzing where students are supposed to be or where they might be hiding out after signing in. “I kind of geek out over all these attendance numbers because a lot of times, we’ll have someone come in late, and then they spend an hour in the bathroom, or they go to the bathroom and never come back,” Howard said. “So, we also field a lot of emails from teachers, and we have to evaluate that, send that out to security with a picture, and try to figure out where the kid went for half an hour.” 

As Howard examines the patterns and abnormalities of attendance behavior, she also notifies teachers if she discovers that a student is absent for one block but comes to school for the next. Through her detailed inspections of student attendance, her insights have been invaluable to the school’s administration, who rely on her observations to keep students safe and accountable. “She stays on top of it,” Assistant Principal Dawn Dickerson said. “There are times where she will let us know, ‘Hey, so and so has been late five times,’ and she’s able to catch situations firsthand and give us a heads up. So, then we’re able to make sure that we stay on top of things. It’s a good partnership.”

Even after the morning rush, Howard’s investigation still doesn’t end. As students leave for early release, many forget to check out, leaving her to, once again, analyze and track down more students. “You can’t put a code in without a time to report,” Howard said. “So, to go into every kid that has a dismissal that hasn’t checked out, so I can populate a time and put it in, it’s just a lot. It’s a lot of different things to try to keep it clean, and whatever passes I have left, at the end of the day, I’ll go through and pull these kids up and try to figure out when they left based on the puzzle.”

 Howard’s already hectic work day spirals into chaos on testing days, when she has to sift through the pile of excuses that overflow her computer. “The whole day is constant on testing days when we have thousands and thousands of kids coming and going, which is pure insanity,” Howard said. “Now, we have to have notes for all appointments, and I usually get a stack of notes in the morning that I have to record in, manually, and change codes so they’re excused, and put them in our little doctor’s note folder.”

Keeping track of her constant workload is not an easy task – it’s one that requires constant brainpower and sacrificing her time. “There’s so many different things that have to be done before the day is closed out, and I feel like I always have 50 windows open in my brain, so it’s just a matter of juggling, prioritizing, [and] making sure that by the end of the day, I have a clean attendance,” Howard said. “I’m not one that will leave anything undone. When I go on vacation, I literally take four days off a year when my daughter cheers in Florida, and [although the admin] covers for me, I always take my laptop and work from there because it’s so much for them.”

Her strong work ethic and dedication to her job don’t go unnoticed. Administrators, including Rock Ridge Secretary Indrani Sircar, who has worked with her for four years, admire her commitment. “[Her job is so difficult] because there are a lot of things – it’s not just marking students absent or present,” Sircar said. “So many students are leaving early, coming in [late]. Then, during testing days, madness goes on. Most days, it’s hard for her to even go to the bathroom. It’s continuous.”

Yet, Howard’s role at Rock Ridge extends far beyond attendance reports. Through giving advice, encouragement, or just asking a student how their day is, she has grown to become a friend to many. “She’s always the first person to greet me when I walk into the school and the last person to say goodbye when I leave,” senior Lucas Wisley said. “I don’t think of it as a student – teacher relationship. She talks to you like she’s on the same level. The conversations feel real, not forced. She always has a smile on her face.”

Just a simple exchange with Howard can uplift students’ moods, which is the case for senior Raheem Richardson. “She always tries to make sure that you’re good,” Richardson said. “Sometimes, she’ll have snacks, like a bowl of candy that she’ll hand out to the kids, or she’ll just make small talk with you, and sometimes small talk is what people need to get them through the day.”

For junior Anjali Gay, her relationship with Howard started after bumping into her at Goodwill, where they bonded over their thrift finds. Since then, talking to Howard has become a staple in Gay’s routine. “She has an impact on my days because when I go in and talk to her about my day, and after we have a good chat, I feel like my days are so much lighter, and I feel better about being stressed out,” Gay said. “She’s super funny, and I enjoy talking to her because we’re very similar, personality wise. She makes a lot of really funny jokes, and she’s very sweet.” 

Through the special connections Howard has created with students, she has gone the extra mile to support them. “Ms. Howard will identify a kid that might need a little extra help in something, and then we all get together, and we pitch in,” Sherri Anderson, an administrative assistant, who works closely with Howard, said. “My first year here, we had a kid who couldn’t get a corsage for his date for prom, so we went in together, and we got that for him.”

Howard has also been known to support students even in their final days of high school. In 2022, a former Rock Ridge student, Basem Bolas, left high school with a surprise from Howard, a nomination for the kindness scholarship that won him $500 dollars and helped him pay his classes in NOVA. He used this money to study law enforcement, which led him to join the Navy, and is now working as a police officer at the Purcellville Police Department. “It was very surprising, because I was not the smartest kid in high school, and usually the scholarships are for people with high GPAs,” Bolas said.

Still keeping in touch with Howard after he graduated, Bolas is grateful for her support through high school, which enabled him to have a successful career. “I used to work in my senior year of high school, and I used to take care of my mom because she didn’t speak English, and she understood and used to just talk to my mom and help me out with any issues,” Bolas said. “She’s an amazing person. I still have her number, and I still talk to her.”

From prom dates to surprise scholarships, Howard’s impact seems boundless. Known for her baking, Howard shares love with her coworkers through the treats she makes. “She is the top A one baker, and she can bake anything, and she brings us sweets all the time,” Sircar said. “For our birthdays, she knows which kind of cakes we like and decorates them [for us].”

Dickerson was especially touched by Howard’s baking. “I had a recipe that I haven’t made since the passing of my aunt, who I was very close to,” Dickerson said. “And she surprised me last year with this recipe, pepper patty cookies, and so not only is she professional, great to work with, but she has a big heart and she loves us and the kids like we’re all family.”

Through the care Howard shows for others, she encourages students to stay on the right path by pushing them to have better attendance. “She reminds us of the consequences in a lighthearted way,” Wilsey said. “She’s definitely on it. As fun as our conversations are, sometimes I can get a little annoyed when I walk in a second after the bell and she’s like, ‘Come on, Lucas.’ But she always reminds you and stays on you about your attendance, regardless of how close your relationship is, and I think that’s very important.” 

Howard’s enthusiasm and commitment to helping students can easily be heard each morning as she pauses to inspire and influence students. “She has an impact because she’s motivating and encouraging [to] the kids and helps them see the value of being here on time, even incorporating a little humor,” Dickerson said. “I just think that her dedication to making sure students understand the importance of getting to school on time is a domino effect because then they’re in class on time, and they’re getting what they need in their classrooms and not disrupting the class when they’re coming in late.”

Yes, Howard can’t escape the tedium of attendance codes, tardy slips, and urgent emails, but she still finds time to make students feel seen. “She’s a very important part of my Rock Ridge life,” Wilsey said. “It’s one of my favorite relationships from the school, and I feel like it’s going to last past graduation. She’s someone I’d want to keep in touch with—give her a call, update her on how my life and college are going—because that’s how comfortable I feel with our relationship.”