This was a basic qualitative case study with an extreme purposive sample to understand those factors that former students of one particular northeast high school, who lived with significant family stress, believed influenced their school attendance choices. Since certain out of school factors limit what schools can accomplish on their own (Berliner, 2009), the focus was to understand if the influences that encouraged daily attendance for these former students were present in the school via specific academic programs, extra-curricular programs, connections with staff members, or connections with peers. All participants lived with significant family stress while enrolled at the high school of study. Half of the sample attended school over 90% of the time and met diploma requirements for graduation. The other half of the sample were chronically absent during their last year of attending the school and did not meet diploma requirements, nor graduate. The graduates identified strong pedagogy, caring teachers and strong extra-curricular programs as contributing positively to their attendance choices and perceived the school community as being a main reason attending regularly. The non-completers identified building entry experiences, academic needs and negative relationships with adults as contributing negatively to their attendance choices and perceived the school community as being a main reason for their school refusal behaviors. Three overarching school experiences were shared by all participants and influenced, for the graduates, their daily attendance and for non-completers, their chronic absence. They were: the classroom experiences, relationships with adult staff and relationships with peers.