The shaded area shows the time we spent with behavior modification. I think you will agree there was a considerable improvement in her attendance during that period. Alas, this story has an unhappy ending. At my encouragement, the teacher wrote up a description of what she had done and included attendance graphs and other data that demonstrated clearly that a miracle had almost happened. She took this report to the school principal who was only mildly interested, but allowed the teacher to place the report into Polly's records so the fourth-grade teacher next year could carry on with the process.
All children are worth saving and Polly was on the way.
At the beginning of the following year, the teacher contacted Polly's fourth-grade teacher and found Polly was attending school regularly. The teacher asked if the fourth-grade teacher had read the report and offered her help if the new teacher wished to continue with some variation of the plan in order not to lose the gains that had been made. The fourth-grade teacher said she had read the report, but she didn't feel a child should be rewarded for doing something she was supposed to do. All the other children could get to school without all that fuss. Besides, she didn't have time to do all that because she had a room full of other children to teach who were responsible enough to come to school without having to be bribed.