Sometimes you just can’t make it, you know? School happens 5 days a week for 8 hours and I’m sorry, but sometimes things come up in those 40 hours. It’s a fact that you have to be in class 90% of the time to get the class credit, however that leaves 10% to freedom. School is important, don’t get me wrong, but perfect attendance is not necessary.

In high school, we are supposed to be preparing ourselves to be adults, and with adulthood comes jobs. Many students have taken off-periods to use for work, but some underclassmen don’t have access to that opportunity, and we must just take the absences. I know that this is hard for the school to believe, but sometimes we are actually sick. We aren’t faking; we might actually throw-up everywhere if we come to school. People can be absent for a variety of reasons, and it’s okay! It is completely the absent student’s responsibility to take care of their missing work. However, if their grades take the fall, then that’s on them. So, the absence itself is not the issue, and the school shouldn’t hire teachers who get unnecessarily angry with students who miss school for reasons that they cannot get out of.

I know that some students are absent way too much. If you only go to class once a month, that’s clearly an issue. However, we are in high school and things like attending school are starting to become our own decisions to make. We are about to be out of our parent’s household, and we will be on our own. If a teenager decides that passing class and attending school is not important to them, then that’s affecting their future and their future only.

People in administrative positions must realize that as long as a student is getting the 90% attendance rate, then the rest is up to us. It’s our personal choice as Americans. Don’t get mad at us and make it torture getting our absent work just to give us a lesson.

Thank you.