A school administrator once explained to me that school attendance is tied to funding (not sure if state or federal, but it's some form of significant funding) just like performance on standardized test scores - at least in my area this is true.
Basically, a school that has kids missing a lot of days will not get as much money as one where kids come to school. That's why schools in my area are so serious about attendance - people missing a lot can affect everyone.
I agree, but maybe it's regional? - sounds like a lot of these parents feel that missing many days of school does not impact their child's grades and not much is missed educationally. That's not the case in my area - the schools in my area actually teach stuff and my kids do miss things when they aren't there - and sometimes it is important to have material taught to you instead of reading it in a book - for ex., math and science. I do not like my children to miss school - I think their good attendance is a reason they do so well both grade-wise and on standardized tests, and I think good attendance in school instills a lifelong habit of good attendance for many things - like at work when they are older for instance. Cheer is a fun extracurricular activity and there are many positives about doing it, but school should be more important IMO - you can only cheer for so long, and you really can not make a living off of it (except in very, very rare cases), but your education is forever.