I’m a bad parent teaching my kids bad habits. Once they got to high school, we started telling the school our kid is sick. We know of the one instance where the teacher wouldn’t allow a makeup. We know of tons of instances where teachers have allowed the makeups. But in high school I don’t want to take the risk.

Your kid needs to get into the habit of talking to their teachers beforehand who known unexcused absences. We've never had a teacher refuse to allow makeup, but it is something they are allowed to do. It helps if your kid comes with a solution in had. "I will be out next Friday and I know there is a quiz. Can I come before school on Thursday or would you like me to make it up after the weekend?" Learning to be proactive will help him a lot in the future.

Our kid misses a bit of school through the year in MS and some are given excused and some are not. There's never time she isn't allowed to make up work/ test regardless of why she missed the school. That said, kid has always talked to the teacher beforehand and ask for any works she can bring with etc. I also email all of the teacher that she will be missing school from xyz and that she will reach out for missing work but if there's anything urgent/ important please let me know.

Never had issue the entire MSyear.

Technically, teachers don’t have to let your kid make up the work if the absence is unexcused. But in our experience, most will. DS wanted to miss school for a swim meet, so we had him talk to his teachers in advance to see if they’d let him make up the work. They all said yes, so we allowed it.

If my MS kid has an unexcused absence (for sport) is he still allowed to make up work he missed? Do teacher differentiate the excused from unexcused or is that just for the admin? If it matters, this is not a frequent occurence--I am talking a couple consecutive days (maybe up to a week) a year.