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Being sick is something that everyone has to deal with. COVID-19 jumping into our lives in 2020 changed the way we deal with missing school for illness forever. The Grosse Pointe Public School District and the whole world had to quickly adapt to students moving online, leading to Zoom calls and braising whole classes with online assignments.
COVID is still something that many students at South are dealing with today. Julia White ’25 said she was stuck quarantined at home only a week before students had midterms this year. White said that what helped her stay on top of things was the daily agendas that the teachers have.
“I really like it when the teachers post their own calendar with resources attached to it,” White said. “It helped me stay organized when I could go online and see things that I was missing rather than having to ask friends in each class.”
Math teacher Amanda Orban said that communication is key when being home sick. Orban said that the best way to not fall behind is talking to your teachers about your situation and letting them help you toward your academic success.
“If I haven’t heard from a student and noticed they have been absent due to illness, I always try to reach out and ask if they need any help in terms of keeping on top of lessons and making sure they know where to find everything,” Orban said.
Not being present in school leads to missing assignments galore. Something that is a big aspect for students missing school is to what extent the teachers will give extensions for that missing work. White said that most teachers were very reasonable with the late work, but it brought a lot of stress when getting to completing it all.
“When I had assignments that were not online and could be done ahead of time, it added to the workload that was already very high as it is,” White said.
A big thing with a student’s workload when it comes to missing school is their ability to do what they can while stuck at home. White said that she could have definitely done more while at home then she did do. Orban said that while Schoology is a great resource, sometimes it isn’t fully taken advantage of by students.
“Not every student does their due diligence when looking to make the work they missed up,” Orban said. “It can be challenging for the inability in some classes, but in my case I post the notes we do every day, so my expectation is that they would have worked through them and have at least attempted some problems so we aren’t starting from scratch.”
Charlie Harr ’26 missed multiple days of school a few weeks ago. Harr said that she made sure to try her best to stay on top of school work while not feeling her best.
“Having to miss school when your sick is truly a chore,” Harr said. “When I was at home and felt up to it, I would always be checking Schoology to see what I could do, but even after that, when I came back to school it was still so hard to catch up.”
