Illness only strikes on weekends and vacations for student with 12 years of perfect attendance.

Stacey Paulsen says attending class can sometimes get on her nerves, but you couldn’t tell that from her attendance record. School officials say the 17-year-old Redondo Beach Union High School senior has not missed a day of school in 12 years.

Paulsen’s perfect attendance was recognized Friday when Friends and Parents of Redondo Beach High School, a community support group, presented her with an award for perfect attendance for the past four years. Paulsen, who will graduate June 23, also will receive a cash award Monday from the school.

Officials at Jefferson Elementary School, where Paulsen previously studied, said her perfect attendance there has only been equaled once in the past seven years.

Paulsen, a C-plus student who plans to attend El Camino College in Torrance and later transfer to Cal State Long Beach to study early childhood development, attributes her perfect record to the fact that she only gets sick during vacations and holidays.

“I can’t explain it,” she said. “I ruin my vacations by getting sick. I went to Hawaii and got sick for three days. I went to Oregon and got sick for three days.”

The talkative teen-ager said she is often tempted by her friends to skip classes, but so far she has been able to resist. “Sometimes school gets on my nerves,” she said. “But it’s fun learning new things.”

Although Robert Paulson, the vice principal at the high school, could not determine whether such a feat had been accomplished before, he termed her perfect attendance “very unique.”

“She is obviously a very healthy girl,” he said. “And she must really enjoy school.”