North Carolina Student Gets Perfect Attendance From Kindergarten through High School

— -- Only Cal Ripken Jr. has more consecutive appearances.

Meet Justice Fleming, the Iron Man of Huntersville, North Carolina, who graduated high school with perfect attendance since kindergarten -- a total of 2,340 school days without missing one.

Ripken, of course, played baseball and appeared in 2,632 consecutive games.

Fleming, who set the goal for himself in the second grade (when he was 7) said he was "thankful" he accomplished his goal.

"Not many people can say that they've been able to have perfect attendance for thirteen consecutive years," he told ABC News.

Fleming wasn't immune to getting sick, but those instances happened to take place on weekends or during school breaks. He came down with the chicken pox in the fourth grade during Christmas break. But it was a "minor case," because he had been vaccinated.

The closest miss was when he broke his ankle as a junior in high school. He didn't know he broke it during the first class of the day, a physical education "ultimate Frisbee" class. He walked around school all-day, knowing it was hurt, until he came home.

"It was swollen the size of a softball," Fleming's mother, Lori, told ABC News. But he still went to school the next day.

"When I was in the emergency room for my broken ankle and unsure of what my treatment was going to be, I was not sure I would make it to school the next day. Thankfully, I did," Fleming said, despite the fact that the doctor wrote him off for five days. He was able to get around school on crutches, with special permission to use the elevators of the school, which has multiple stories.

His mother recalls, "He said, 'I can keep my foot elevated at school as easily as I can at home.'"

Ripken can breathe easy.

Fleming said he does not plan to pursue perfect attendance at his next school, East Carolina University.

His sister, Shelby, in the seventh grade, is hoping to reach the same goal of perfect attendance.

What's Fleming's advice to his sister and others with that dream?

"Try your best and expect your teachers to often ask you why you are at school when all of your classmates are not," he said. "Be prepared for some goodhearted teasing from your friends when they are all skipping school for 'senior skip day' and you are going to school like usual."