Everyday we have student’s striving for their best to keep up their grades, maintain a social life, and give their all to appear every single day. Yet there are things students are unable to predict from the accidental act of sleeping in, or just traffic being heavy one day. These students are able to walk by with a tardy on their first periods, not much or any of the lesson having been lost. Yet there are students who miss the whole day, perhaps even longer than just a few days from things out of their control. That’s where disease comes in, some being more major than others affects it’s longevity on the student, but also their ability to be present. Sure some students may be able to attend school regardless of their illness, yet there are some who simply cannot, missing their periods without much of a chance to learn while they rest.

When a student finally is able to return to school, they are well behind on the entire lesson plan. Confusion and nervousness as they struggle to keep up in lessons they either barely or don’t at all understand, having been thrust into possibly new topics entirely. The consequences causing the student to feel the pressure of their slipping grades as they not only were unable to learn the lesson over their sick days, but also were decommissioned from turning in any assignments. As time goes on, even more confusion is placed onto them as they are forced to learn something too advanced as they had missed the fundamentals of the whole unit. Some students try to look for remnants of the lesson, but this is where it gets even worse, lesson resources. Not all teachers actively go out their way to leave breadcrumbs to students who may have been out for a few days, leaving whole chunks of a lesson completely unknown to a student who was sick.

This lack of resource hurts the student even more, exhaustion now piling in with a doubt that they are truly able to catch up to their peers. In the end, our school has to be more aware of those unable to attend school due to illness, and try to push more teachers to leave their lessons open to students, as leaving them blind in the dust with no chance of recovery, is not how us as Conquistadors should treat them.