An Onondaga County district got students to school by offering something they really want: Gift cards
(Syracuse.com | Dec. 15, 2025) A year ago, Liverpool High School officials were staring at a frustrating problem common among school districts: Far too few students were coming to class.
Then, nearly one-third of Liverpool’s high school students were chronically absent, meaning they missed at least 10% of school days throughout the year.
So in the fall of 2024, the district tried something new. It offered $5 Dunkin’ gift cards to every student who came to school on a scheduled half-day. In the past, just 80% of kids showed up on that day. With the doughnut and coffee temptation, the attendance rate jumped to almost 90%.
That giveaway was part of a larger effort to make “Every Day Count” …
… Paying kids to come to school with cash or gift cards can be controversial. But they do work.
“They aren’t a panacea,” said George Theoharis, a professor at Syracuse University’s School of Education. “But incentives like gift cards can be motivating for things like attendance. It’s not a creative task. It’s about you get here. You do X, and you get Y.”
Theoharis doesn’t see a problem with it. Commercial incentives, he said, are akin to other enticements that are already baked-in to school life: sports, music, clubs.
All of it, he said, adds up to motivation to get to school, the crucial first step in being present and learning.
At Liverpool, however, a big offer from High School Nation earlier this fall backfired …