A sprawling, 18-year-old houseplant watches the doorway to the attendance office from the topmost level of the shelf containing all the substitute teacher records—rows upon rows of sleek black binders packed in close quarters—as the attendance clerks type away behind their monitors. 

This is the system behind the 96.1% attendance rate that the campus rests on, compared to the district’s required 95%. At the beginning of March, the office was awarded a trophy for Clements having the highest student attendance in the district.

“One of our most prominent jobs is, obviously, to take care of any attendance issues daily,” attendance clerk Alison Thornton said. “When we get to work, we’ll be sitting on sometimes 100 emails from the parents of students who had absences…We have some reports that we run in our office to see when students were marked absent. So we can look through those reports and look for any abnormalities.”

There are often dozens of abnormalities every period that the attendance clerks must attend to. It’s a lot like detective work, figuring out the whereabouts of a missing student at a particular time.

“Maybe they were sitting in another office,” Thornton said. “Maybe the teacher made an error. Maybe they were really tardy. All those kinds of things. We look through these reports and answer all the parent emails and code all of our absences for the day.”

Long before the first bell rings, between 6:15 and 6:30 a.m., administrative assistant Kaylin Lucas starts her day with a homemade café au lait. Sometimes, on a fast-blooded day, she’ll pick up a caramel macchiato from Starbucks before arriving on campus. The office is always dark when she arrives—sometimes the sun is still asleep—keys in hand.

“I line up all of our subs for the day and get their binders ready so they can have a smooth day on our campus,” Lucas said. “Then I go through and make sure that all the discipline referrals are caught up for my principals.”

Lucas is assigned to assistant principals Eric Sweeney and Shannon Gray but considers her work with substitutes the biggest part of her job. In the morning, she is the one to greet the slow trickle of substitutes for the day, handing out their binders with color-coded sheets on the bell schedule, admin phone numbers, rosters and attendance instructions. Substitutes also receive the map of the campus, classroom keys and any instructions that the teacher might’ve left behind.

“We use a system called ReadySub, and all the subs in our district get notifications when our teachers put in an absence, and they have an opportunity to pick those jobs up,” Lucas said. “We also have preferred subs on our campus—subs that have been with us for several years and have shown that they’re reliable. So if a teacher requests for them to be in their classroom, I reach out to them and see if they’re available.”

That substitute then has 48 hours to accept or decline the job before it opens to the rest of the  substitutes in the district. Before Lucas came to Clements at the beginning of the school year, she split her time between paraprofessional and substitute assignments in Lufkin ISD and her main line of work, restaurant management. 

“The hardest part for me was being able to adjust with my time demands, because at the restaurant, you’re going, you never stop, you always have something to be doing,” Lucus said.  “There wasn’t much downtime where you get to sit, so that was a bit of an adjustment.”

Lucas managed a Texas Roadhouse for two and a half years. The appeal, for her, lay in the role’s inherent ability to build connections, which was the reason behind Lucas’ childhood dream to be a teacher. As a student, she was usually the one staying after class to help the teacher erase the whiteboard. 

“One year, I was voted as class clown, so that tells you how I was,” Lucas said. “I did get on a lot of teachers’ nerves, but [Ms. Price] was always so patient with me and so kind. Her lovingness is what has stuck with me, and I think that if she was able to show me such grace through all that, it encourages me to do the same thing for students today.”

Lucas went on to study Human and Family Development at Stephen F. Austin State University and worked afterwards as a paraprofessional for roughly three years. Having that first-hand experience as a paraprofessional helped her understand their unique set of struggles and just how vital they are to the campus.

“Whenever I was a paraprofessional, I really realized how much I enjoyed building those relationships with students,” Lucas said. “As I’ve gotten older, I don’t think I want to be in the classroom as much. I think I want to be on this side of things, in the admin world.”

As an attendance clerk, Lucas is still able to connect with students, but this time without the responsibility of making sure they pass a coming exam. The main unpleasantry that remains is having to take up phones.

“I don’t enjoy taking devices,” Lucas said. “It makes my job easier if you keep them turned off and in your backpack.”

On her desk at any given time is a small stack of confiscated phones wrapped in a teacher-issued slip and rubber-banded. Throughout the day, as the pile accumulates, the phones slowly get transferred to its holding cell, the office’s safe, to wait for students to pick them up after dismissal. If Lucas is not in the office when a student drops by for their device, the attendance clerks also know the safe’s password.

“There’s a lot of teamwork that goes on here,” Lucas said. “Whenever I’m out, the attendance ladies will help. A lot of the times they love to bake, and so they’ll bring cookies or pies. They’re always checking in to see how the weekend went.”

Lucas’ favorite sweet treat—which is a common one in the office—is attendance clerk Micky Wong’s lemon cake. Lucas herself is also an avid baker. For Christmas, she received a KitchenAid mixer.

“When I go home, I do have two dogs, so I usually end up taking them on walks,” Lucas said. “I also enjoy reading books and doing puzzles. Those calm, old lady things.”

Those hobbies are what relax Lucas after a lengthy workday. For students, who may also be struggling in a high-pressure academic environment, Lucas’s primary message is to step back and look at the full picture. 

“Soak it in, because even if it seems like a really rough time, it really is a good time of your life,” Lucas said. “Make the most of it. Most of the things that feel heavy are not that big of a deal. There are some things that are a big deal, but most of these people you’re not going to see again. Just get through the four years. Enjoy it.”

Lucas’ favorite moment of the year was during one of her first faculty gatherings, when Gray handed her a “legacy” Lego brick and told her how much she appreciated Lucas’ presence in the office.

“I love being here at Clements,” Lucas said. “I love the team that I get to work with. I don’t know what the future holds for me here. I know that I want to keep growing with it.”

Attendance clerk Susana Avalos says goodbye to her two cats, locks the door and arrives at the office before 7 a.m. Before starting the workday, she has a cup of Folger’s coffee with half and half and a packet of Splenda sugar, and begins looking through her overnight inbox. Avalos keeps a neat calendar and agenda on the side that she checks throughout the day, even if she’s working from the front office.

“We work together to make sure attendance is taken correctly,” Avalos said. “For example, sometimes the kids will go to another office, and they don’t go to their classroom. So, we get a list at the end of the day from the offices, and I go back and check all of them to make sure whoever was not absent if they were there.”

It is Avalos’s third year at Clements and her 20th year with the district. Before coming to Clements, Avalos worked as an attendance clerk at Willow Ridge High School and, prior to joining the district, Houston ISD. 

“Every school is different,” Avalos said. “I mean, when I got here, I had to make some changes. Over here, when a student was signing out, we go back and look at the attendance and excuse it for the day, based on whatever the parent signed them out [for]. Over there, it was just like, ‘Okay,’ that was it. We waited for the actual absence note.”

However, her interest in “office work” has stayed constant over the years. Since Avalos was young, she took deliberate enjoyment in typing and filing the paperwork, and so all of her roles have revolved around that.

“It’s a very busy job,” Avalos said. “It always keeps you busy, but at the same time, it’s rewarding because you get to help the parents, you get to help the school and you have to help students.”

Behind Avalos’ desk—which can be easily spotted from the sheer number of cat-related decorations—hangs a bulletin board, with two student diplomas pinned on the top left. They were tokens of appreciation from old Clements students, and Avalos considers receiving them her sweetest memory. Though Avalos will be eligible to retire in one year, she plans to stay at Clements at least until the completion of the new campus.

“I’m very happy here,” Avalos said. “I like the atmosphere, and I like how we get together with my coworkers. We all teamwork, and I love that. In my previous schools, if you were out, you used to do your own work. Here, we help each other.”

Outside of school hours Avalos enjoys spending time with her family and friends, namely her four sisters. When alone, she likes taking walks and gardening—mostly spices or herbs like mint, oregano and peppers—savoring her leisure time with slower, more deliberate amusements. It is the same message she hopes to pass onto students.

“Enjoy the time at the high school, because it goes so fast,” Avalos said. “I mean, you’re a freshmen, and then you’re a senior. Enjoy your friends, enjoy the activities, enjoy prom, everything.”

At 6:50 a.m., Thornton arrives at the office, holding a double shot Nespresso with heavy whipping cream—which she also uses to make the occasional Fettuccine Alfredo—and no sugar. Then, she promptly sits down to begin organizing the emails based on their alpha split system. At 9:30 a.m., she’ll have another coffee, black, from the office’s coffee press.

“I started here when my oldest son was going to be in high school, and it was a good fit for me to be the taxi and all that,” Thornton said. “I’ve been here for eight years now.”

Thornton started in 2017 and has seen both of her sons graduate from Clements. Her youngest was part of the class of ‘23. 

“One of our duties would be to help educate parents, because sometimes they don’t realize they should be sending notes,” Thornton said. “Sometimes their student has to leave early, and they don’t know the procedure. Thinking back as a parent, there’s a lot of things I didn’t know before I worked at the school.”

Before coming to Clements, Thornton worked in retail management for about 20 years, running big-box stores like Macy’s and managing hundreds of employees. After having children, she switched careers, because working retail brought too many late-night closing shifts and time away from family.

“In this job, you have to juggle things, but probably even more so in that other job,” Thornton said. “You had the keys to the store. You had to help with a customer accident. You had to help with complaints. You had employees that were late. You know, you did it all. So a lot of that stuff is carried over, people skills.”

Before kickstarting her career, Thornton was pursuing business management at Purdue University in Fort Wayne, Indiana. However, she never ended up finishing her degree there, instead believing that it was not necessary. At the time, she was working in Human Resources for Marshall Field’s, now called Macy’s, and couldn’t juggle both work and school.

“A lot of life is just learning,” Thornton said. “Some of us learn better in a school environment, but you can learn [in] other ways. But I’m all for getting a degree, and I told my sons that [it] wasn’t optional for them to not do it. It was just a different world back in my time.”

After three years at Macy’s, she was promoted to manager, a role she held for 15 years. Since she was young, Thornton had always been drawn to the store environment.

“There’s nothing like going into a store and seeing all the new fashion, new things,” Thornton said. “When you work there, it’s sort of fun, because you get to unbox it and see it right when it comes to the shelves. You’re the first person to touch it.”

The biggest difference, then versus now, is her sense of urgency. Working as an attendance clerk is still urgent, but not for the sake of money. Now, Thornton focuses on bettering the school environment—one absence at a time—rather than selling products with maximum efficiency. 

“Students don’t realize how many absences are out there,” Thornton said. Sometimes, as a student, you’re busy doing everything else, and you just don’t realize that you have these markings against you.”

While there is a campus-wide system in place to prevent errors, sometimes they still end up happening. It has been, however, a big step up from COVID when most instruction happened virtually.

“It was, of course, a very difficult time on many fronts,” Thornton said. “It was harder to follow up to see if the kid was really there. If they logged on, they were there, [but] it was hard to verify.”

Currently, they’re operating at a happy medium, Thornton said, though there are still everyday difficulties, like the rotation to the front office.

“We need to be up there because that’s where students get signed out,” Thornton said. “We moved it up there for the safety of the school, so we [the attendance clerks] just stepped up and made it work.”

Looking back, Thornton considers the biggest change to be the cell phone ban. When she first started working at Clements, phones were popular to a degree that limited student interaction.

“Our interactions with people are one of the biggest things that influence us, and, you know, you make a difference in peoples’ lives when you spend time with them,” Thornton said. “People say hi more often than they used to, when they had their phones all the time, so I think that’s a good change.”

One of Thornton’s favorite memories has been seeing the band perform, whether that’s at a game or just down the hallway. Her siblings were involved in their high school band, and she considers it a cornerstone of true school spirit.

“Your school spirit is your pride in your school, so, you know, enjoy your school,” Thornton said. “Have fun. Work hard. I think a lot goes on in high schoolers’ minds, but just relax and enjoy high school. It’s a special time in your life.”

Outside of the office, Thornton enjoys traveling—and plans to visit five national parks over spring break—and making “little baubles.” She used to have a jewelry business but her interest has become more casual over the years. 

“I made my own necklace that I wore at my wedding, strung my own pearls,” Thornton said. “Then just, sometimes, there’s a piece you make and the beads [and] the color assortment is just beautiful. So there’s probably a couple of pieces I still have that I didn’t sell, that I cherish because I just love the look of them.”

From the office, Wong is the only one who doesn’t drink coffee, sticking instead to hot water and tea. She spends most mornings going between checking in latecomers and answering emails.

Of the 18 years that Wong worked at Clements, the first nine were spent as the only attendance clerk. She didn’t miss a single day during her first seven years and has racked up over 80 vacation days since then. At the time, because of the workload, she often brought work home, spending late nights pouring over reports even while she cooked, stirring the pot idly, head turned to multi-task.

“I just do it on my own, all day on the weekend, every time I have a chance, I go upstairs, type away,” Wong said. “Then the demand is more, so they…start hiring more, since we have 2,000 something kids in our school. We have three attendance clerks now, but we still cannot function. It’s very, very busy.”

Part of that busyness comes from the fact that “everything has to do with attendance,” Wong said. The attendance clerks are also required to print out—or keep track of, electronically—certain reports, mostly related to funding, in case the district asks for it. 

“Every day I come in, it’s about 50 to 70 emails waiting for me,” Wong said. “Most of them are from parents. Now, since we are going paperless, starting this year…we encourage the parents to send email instead of bringing in a note.”

Before the office went paperless, Wong described the attendance process as “print out, print out, then file, file.” This year, they only need to drag and drop the file to the right place virtually. 

“Each absence takes many, many steps to get it done,” Wong said. “Every day we try to do everything before three, but we never have a chance to finish it before three.”

If work remains unfinished, it piles up the next day, Wong said, so she consistently stays late, trying to get to all of the day’s emails. It was the driving factor for her perfect attendance the first seven years she worked here. Besides parent emails, the attendance clerks also need to code school-sponsored activities ahead of time, check in with teachers about attendance concerns and correct mismarked absences.

“The district start to eliminate and only give rights to the attendance clerks to do attendance, so nobody else can code anything but the three of us,” Wong said. “Every time they need us to code something, we need to have an email to back us up and keep that.”

Wong moved to the United States when she was 17 years old, previously residing briefly at a refugee camp in Thailand and later on Indonesia. At first, staying in the temporary camp in Thailand, she said the living conditions were “horrible,” without proper restrooms and sometimes, lacking in food and water as well.

“It’s like a desert out there,” Wong said. “There’s no water. Every day, car coming in to pour water into tank. And then we all have to get in line with a bucket. The whole family have one bucket. And whatever you do with that bucket, take a shower, cook. Just that one bucket of water.”

For Wong and all of the Vietnamese people in the camp, the bucket of water was not a guarantee, because the Cambodians—whose camp they were sharing at the time—had priority. After they moved into Indonesia, Wong said things got better. While at the camps, she idolized the Red Cross workers and wanted to be one to support people on similar journeys. However, that dream fizzled out after starting her family because of the long-distance traveling the job would require. 

“When I just came…we wearing high heels to school, and when it hurt, they take it off and walk with bare feet all over the school,” Wong said. “To us in Asia, that is embarrassing, but I guess in America, whatever works for you, whatever makes you comfortable, do it. And I think that’s better. Nothing to embarrass about, you know? It hurts so much, you cannot wear it anymore, so just take it and walk with it.”

After migrating to California at age 17, Wong graduated from Pasadena City College in 1985, obtaining an Associate of Arts degree. Before coming to Clements, Wong worked at an elementary school in California as an administrative assistant.

“Everything is bigger here in Texas,” Wong said. “School here, so many kids, many thousand kids compared to school there. We only had 20 to 30 teachers.”

In the end, Wong said that it was the staffs’ kindness keeps her motivated to continue working. 

“When I just came, they are so sweet,” Wong said. “They help with everything they can, and that’s why I love this job so much, because of the people.”

Wong enjoys giving back to her co-workers as well, often bringing in sweet treats and other small gifts. Moreover, she’s the primary caretaker of the plant that sits behind Lucas’ desk, guarding the substitute binder shelf.

“That’s the one I won, when I first got here, in one of the parent luncheons,” Wong said. “Every year, I give it a haircut, because it gets too long, it’s too big. Summer, I used to either bring the fertilizer here to put more in, or I take it home and add to it.”

In her free time, Wong enjoys quilting. It is not so different from her job in the sense that both are time-consuming and require patience and precision, but Wong finds it rather relaxing. She is currently working on a ladybug-patterned quilt for her granddaughter.

“I learned how to quilt about 10 years [ago],” Wong said. “If I am retired, what am I doing? You know, I have to have a hobby. I know how to sew very well, and I have a friend that teach me how to quilt, and I start falling in love. Since then, that’s my hobby.”

Occasionally, Wong will also quilt for her co-workers. Due to time constraints, much of her quilting is done over the weekend or late at night. Of course, she could use one of her vacation days—she has nearly 80 to spare—to quilt, but she anticipates having more time once she retires. So far, though, retirement is not on her roster.

“I am actually already qualified to retire, but I think I will work until my body says, ‘Oh, you have enough,’” Wong said. “The staff here is very nice, it’s very nice to work here, the environment, student is nice.”

On the days she spends on campus, district team specialist Esmeralda Velasco brings in her cold brew coffee—with Chobani creamer—from home, though the residential coffee machine sits in her office on top of a stout filing cabinet. Upon arriving, she gets to work, connecting her laptop to her dual monitors, and adjusts her desk depending on whether she wants to work standing or sitting.

Velasco has been a district team specialist for the past year and a half, working mainly at Clements but also all of the subsequent feeder schools. She spends about 90% of her time at on campus. The other 10% is dedicated to routinely checking in at the middle and elementary schools that she’s in charge of monitoring.

“I run reports, and I look at data,” Velasco said. “I check for discrepancies, any anomalies, and I do that for all the campuses. That entails attendance, enrollment…grades, scheduling, credits. We run those reports to make sure that all the data is being reported accurately to the state.”

When a discrepancy is found, Velasco reaches out to whoever is in charge of the data. Together, they come up with a solution. The majority of her time, however, is spent holed up in the office, looking over electronic reports and in Microsoft Teams’ meetings or on the phone, which can make her feel “a bit disconnected,” she said.

“I do try and go out and see the data entry clerk,” Velasco said. “I’ll talk to the attendance clerks, and I’ll go see the assistant registrar and the registrar to see if they have anything that they want to discuss. I do have meetings with them once a month to discuss data and anything new, any changes.”

Before coming to Clements, Velasco worked at Bowie Middle School for two years as a registrar and data entry clerk. When she was younger her dream was to be a lawyer; however, after researching all the time and costs that go into law school, she decided to veer away from that path. Eventually she received a bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a minor in General Business, from the University of Houston.

“I always thought that people should follow the rules,” Velasco said. “I always thought that it was important that justice was always taking place. But I’m here, and I love it here, and I really enjoy what I do.”

Once Velasco leaves the building, she shifts from work mode to mom mode. She has two children with hectic lives. Her daughter, who does gymnastics and swim, is preparing for middle school; whereas her son, a freshman at Ridge Point High School, is part of the band and the baseball team.

“It’s a pretty busy life as a mom,” Velasco said. “But I enjoy it. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I recently started cycling, you know, to do something for myself, so that’s been fun. Then, like I said, just doing everyday things that moms do.”

Above everything, Velasco enjoys a calm environment—and she does her part in keeping the district peaceful and error-free, to the best of her ability. In her office, she keeps various decorations that tie back to the beach and the sea with its gentle waves, the picture of tranquility for her.

“I love the team that we have,” Velasco said. “They’re amazing. They’re fun to work with. Like I said, everyone, the environment here is the best and I couldn’t have asked for a better campus, or peers, to be in.”