WATTS : Student Stays Perfect for 14 Straight Years

Marre Cummings has a longer streak than even Cal Ripken Jr.

While Baltimore Oriole shortstop Ripken has gone 13 seasons without missing a game, Cummings has gone 14 years without missing a day of school--pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Not one day.

The 18-year-old senior at King-Drew Medical Magnet will be lauded for her achievement at graduation ceremonies Wednesday with commendations from the school and City Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr.

“This feels really good,” the soft-spoken Watts resident recently said of her accomplishment. “I never had the desire to miss school. If you miss a day of school you miss a day of your education.”

In his 10 years at King-Drew, English teacher Steve Segal had never heard of a student with so many years of perfect attendance until he met Cummings.

“She’s incredibly conscientious,” said Segal, who had Cummings in two classes during her three years at the school for gifted students with aspirations for jobs in health care. “She turns in her assignments on time; she’s diligent on all projects; she likes being in school.” She leaves the school with a 3.2 grade-point average.

Principal Ernie Roy didn’t realize he had a student the likes of Cummings until her mother, Mary Thomas, called his attention to the milestone a few months ago.

Roy checked his own records and those at Ritter Elementary School and Markham Jr. High School to confirm the feat. “And then it dawned on me how important this was,” he said. “This was very unique.”

But Cummings might have been like most other students with blotches on their attendance report if it hadn’t been for her mother.

A firm believer that a good education is the best guarantee for a bright future, Thomas made sure her daughter was up and ready for school every day. She instilled in Cummings the importance of school and stressed that even one day missed was a lost opportunity for greater knowledge. “There were times she wasn’t feeling good but she got up and went to school, anyway,” Thomas said.

Thomas was so determined that her daughter have a perfect attendance record she would call to double-check that Cummings did not have to attend school on teacher in-service and other pupil-free days.

“It was my goal to see that she have perfect attendance,” the dental assistant said. “I felt the only way you were going to accomplish anything in life is by going to school, and you have to be there every day so you don’t miss an important subject.”

When Cummings reached the seventh grade, however, Thomas’ goal became her daughter’s.

“One day I just thought to myself that this was pretty remarkable,” she said. “I just thought it was something I should be able to do throughout high school.”

From that point on, it was Cummings who made sure her mother was up in time to drive her to school.

The 12th-grader said she never once considered breaking her streak even when senior ditch-day rolled around.

“[The other seniors] tried to convince me to go along, but I didn’t,” she said. “My record was on the line.”

Cummings still has to decide which of six colleges to attend, but she already has made up her mind to continue her perfect attendance streak while she studies to become a pediatrician. Among her choices are Dillard University in New Orleans, Grambling State and Paine College in Augusta, Ga.

Even though Cummings is leaving home in the fall, her family’s passion for education will not diminish.

Her 15-year-old sister, Malarie Cummings, a 9th-grader, herself has a perfect attendance record and plans to continue it all the way through high school.

“I’ve made it this far,” she said recently. “I might as well go all the way.”