After 32 years in school districts around metro Atlanta, Ms. Kyra Jackson has seen almost everything. She has been at North Atlanta since 1997, and has served as the attendance clerk here and at other schools since 1981. When I say she has seen it all, I’m talking about the outrageous excuses she’s heard from students about why they have been late to school – or why they didn’t make it to school at all. After speaking with her, I was able to make a list of the all-time-greatest excuses. In order to respect the privacy of those cited, real student names have not been used.

Number 4: Liar, Liar

Number four on our list goes to “Jane.” She came to Ms. Jackson with a creative tardy excuse that seemingly pointed toward family strife at home. Her proffered excuse for her tardiness was that she and her mother were in a heated altercation. Although Ms. Jackson had her doubts, she let Jane go on to class. Still there were those lingering doubts. Ms. Jackson called the student’s mother. Suspicions were confirmed when the mother informed Ms. Jackson that she had not seen her daughter in more than a day. Jane gets a gold medal for audacity, wouldn’t you say? Throwing your own mother under the bus is never the best way to get on the good side of Ms. Jackson.

Number 3: Missed Connections

Everyone knows the classic excuse, “Oh, I missed the bus,” and as you might expect, this is one Ms. Jackson hears all the time. But there was one student who took missing the bus to whole new proportions. Under normal circumstances, “Tyrone” always woke up at 7 a.m. and made it to his school bus stop exactly at 7:25 a.m., just in time to catch his bus. But one particular evening, he stayed up deep into the early-morning hours studying for his midterms. The next morning he overslept. He woke up in a panic, and rushed to catch his school bus. It was close but not quite, but this was just the first in a series of near misses. That unfortunate morning, our hero managed to miss a MARTA bus, a MARTA train, and another MARTA bus. By the time Tyrone got to school, he had already missed his first midterm, giving proof to the old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” And that holds true, even if all your trying is not getting you very far.

Number 2: Oh Deer, I’m Late

Number 2 has to go to “Jack.” Usually when you don’t have a valid excuse in the morning, incoming students have to sign in as tardy and these scofflaws will automatically receive a detention. Jack had a compelling and seemingly implausible tardy excuse that Ms. Jackson had never heard before. He told her he was driving to school when a deer suddenly jumped out in front of his pickup truck. Ms. Jackson had her initial doubts but Jack was able to use some show-and-tell to dispel them. He took her out to his truck that was nearby and in the back truck bed of his Ford F-150 track was a deceased deer, a poor creature who had given up its life for Jack’s pursuit of education.

Number One: I’m So Excited

As a straight-A student, “Josh” was always excited to go to school. On one particular day, he was more thrilled than ever. It was his first day of his high school career, a career that would start at North Atlanta High School. Unfortunately, his excitement got the best of him. While on the MARTA bus ride over, a sense of over-excitement took a disastrous turn for the worse. Curiously, his bowels became a bit too relaxed and he had to take another bus ride home in order to replace some spoiled pants for some cleaner ones. He came to school late. It took just a few artful questions on Ms. Jackson’s part and she was able to arrive at the embarrassing truth. She said this excuse pretty much topped all other ones she had heard before.

Our experienced attendance officer really has seen and heard it all. Ms. Jackson, thank you for being our frontline defense against tardiness and high doses of excuse-giving absurdity. And if you think you’ve got a good excuse when you’re waltzing in late to North Atlanta, remember, you’re not even close to making the above “Top Excuses” list.