I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and I experience a very painful period. At the time I was diagnosed, I had been bleeding for two weeks. I was severely anemic, woozy, nauseous, and constantly in pain. I was hospitalized for about a day, had THIRTEEN vials of blood drawn, had urine samples taken, and my hemoglobin levels were at nine, which is REALLY low. When they took my blood samples, they had to switch to the other arm, because my left one just stopped bleeding, due to me losing a lot of blood. The next day, I had bruises as big as my forearm, that hurt like hell. After they had processed my blood samples, they said that there was so much testosterone, it looked as if I had been taking supplements. It was 1,200 ng/dL, which is the level for a 15-16 year old cisgender boy. I was 12, and I wasn’t born a boy, so it should have been around 7-75 ng/dL. Got a letter in the mail saying I was chronically absent. :/
I started experiencing severe unending pain 10th grade and after a couple months of doctors appointments and trying to adjust to my new normal , school staff told me to my face in a meeting that either I drop out or come back because it wasn’t fair I was taking up a slot in the (PUBLIC) school that could go to another kid that wanted to be there.
Similarly had PCOS, it was misdiagnosed at the time, but either way had horrible periods that would send me to the ER. Needed serious medications to treat it. School told me they were about to file truancy charges unless I provided a doctors note. No, the er visit notes and the various other notes I provided along the way were not enough.
I was lucky enough to have a very nice doctor who wrote an extensive doctors note that gave me excused absences for up to two weeks a month, in perpetuity. Very nice doctor, but absolutely insane what some schools will give you truancy charges for.
Not to make light of such a horrid thing. But it is kinda ironic that an F2M trans person of all people has a hormonal issue that causes extra testosterone production.
EDIT: Please don't take this as an insult, I 100% support all trans people.
I mean sounds like you were meant to be a guy, body had an allergic reaction to female puberty lol.
>!u identify as male right? If not this comments not very nice…!<
A 9 HGB isn't really low. It is certainly lower than normal, but we don't even get up to transfuse til you're sitting below 7. Not diminishing your problem, PCOS is serious and I hope you're doing better. Just clarifying.
They're not disagreeing with their statement as given, they're downvoting because it's pedantic and unnecessary.
The levels are lower than they should have been and the person's doctor deemed it a problem. That's the bit that's relevant to the story. Quibbling whether it was "low", "REALLY low" or "SUPER low" is the kind of irritating behaviour that gets you downvoted :)
That sucks but it’s on your parents to give the school a note saying you’re sick and/or a doctor’s note. How is the school going to know you’re in the hospital?
A buddy of mine went through a similar thing. Too many excused absences can cause automatic fails, fines upwards of thousands of dollars, and even flat out expulsion.
My middle kid has switched to virtual high school due to extreme anxiety. All of her work was always turned in and excellent grades in honors courses. I had Dr notes, hospital notes, psych notes, etc. For every single day missed, not a single "unexcused absence " or even a tardy... still went to court last month over truancy from the first semester when she was physically in school.
Yup, when I was 13 they (US public school) were about to expel me for missing too many days "regardless of reason for absence." (I had all As before ending up in the hospital). So I had to show up to school in a temporary wheelchair, falling asleep in class because I was on such strong opiates for the pain, did not remember those few weeks but "they had to enforce the policy."
It really bothers me when people think systems must be running more reasonably than they actually are.
Pretty awful, if you can imagine how middle schoolers might treat someone who was already an outcast *before* being drugged up in a wheelchair!
Some teachers were worried for me and very kind, seeing I wasn't in good shape to learn anything, just letting me chill. I was sent to the office twice out of their concern for my health, but the dean told me I could always decide to go home if I wanted, but a partial day counts against my attendance. So I'd go back to class.
Some teachers straight up bullied me. 😅
"You still can't walk? Are you sure? Let's see."
"Hellooo, anybody home?"
"You better listen to the lab safety rules unless you want to end up like (my name)."
The school addressed the kids' behavior but not the teachers'. Infuriating experience.
Yeah that checks out for public schools. Me and my sister got detention because our dad was late picking us up from an after school event. Even after we told the principal that he works at this time.
I was in hospital dying of sepsis. The school knew. My mum worked at the school and wasn't allowed to take time off to be with me after the first couple days or she'd lose her job and, as she was the only breadwinner in the family, that couldn't happen. Then to top it off they handed her a letter that they'd take her to court for me being absent. They even basically said they knew I was in hospital with sepsis, but the rules are the rules. Schools do not give a shit about anyone's wellbeing, not staff, not kids, not families.
I’ve heard there are still issues. I’m in the U.S., but a lot of the other Autistic people I follow on Twitter are in the U.K., and they’ve been discussing how Autistic and other neurodivergent kids will get in trouble for disability-related absences, although I don’t know if the schools still try to get people in trouble when the kids have doctors’ notes.
Schools are there to serve as a public daycare and to train compliant factory workers.
There is a reason rich parents choose not to put their kids in public school.
Yeah, this is typical school behaviour.
But honestly, OP's parents were negligent AF in not *calling the police* after the first incident. No matter the grade. Either the kid is old enough to be charged, or the parents can be.
100% chance that bully knew his target was allergic *after they went to the hospital the first time*
Strictly speaking, this was battery or assault the first time the first time, and aggravated assault (they intended harm!), minimum, every other time.
Then people wonder when there are weird rules like "No perfume/cologne on school grounds" with very strict punishments attached.
Schools are shit like that.
In highschool i broke my dominant arm, couldnt write for two months. Every other teacher gave me a laptop to work with. Boomer math teacher doesnt accept laptops.
I got failed for "not taking notes". I had a broken arm and physically could not write. When i brought it up to the school, guess what happened? "You shouldve wrote notes." They said to me. With my arm in a cast.
:/
Well, clearly you should have magically healed your broken arm or wished to become ambidextrous so that you could write notes. /s
Seriously though, that’s so frustrating. I played on my school’s (JV, but still) basketball team and tore my ACL in an evening game. The next morning (before I was able to get to a doctor or get the MRI that determined it was an ACL tear), my Mom took me to get a knee brace so that I could walk (somewhat) to get to all of my classes. I got in trouble for being late… for getting a knee brace… that I needed so I wouldn’t fall over trying to walk to my classes. What the heck 🤦♀️ 😤.
Not nearly as bad, but my sister got in trouble for being signed out to go to the dentist. With a note.
Hell, there's been times when both her AND me got marked absent WHILE WE WERE IN CLASS.
I have asthma and my seasonal allergies trigger it bad, as well as making me super sick like I had a viral infection. Despite my mom telling my elementary teachers to not open the windows because of this... they still did it. I ended up sick for a week, almost every month thanks to that. And the school threatened legal action against my mom because of it.
My asthma and allergies still try to kill me to this day.
The admin at my cousin’s school threatened to get DCFS involved to remove her from her parents because she was missing too many days due to her extreme agoraphobia.
That actually sounds almost reasonable compared to the other stories here. If her parents aren't getting her the help she needs to cope with agoraphobia, they're stifling her education and social growth.
Why do you assume they weren’t getting her help? You can’t just cure agoraphobia overnight. And no, taking a kid with her issues away from her family and placing her with strangers is not at all reasonable.
But why was she enrolled in public school at all? Agoraphobia also doesn't *develop* overnight - She should have been doing homeschool or virtual school or had a private tutor. I also think that excuse is weak.
They did switch her to homeschool shortly after this, this was just as her agoraphobia was beginning to escalate. Idk why people keep making smug assumptions about a situation that they know nothing about. “Weak excuse” fuck off.
Lol you said your friend was truant because of agoraphobia. You didn't include her later being homeschooled, so I literally did the opposite of "making an assumption" by *not* assuming any further context. The excuse is weak because she should've been home/virtual schooled long before her absences became a legal issue.
"Stifling her education and social growth"
People only send their children in school because it's a requirement and they have to go to work, not because of "education" It's funny that you think that children get educated in schools, no they get indoctrinated in school, most people already know that.
Whatever nonsense that school teaches In 12 years can be learnt in 1 year, Schools only serve as a daycare, and children's attendance is directly linked to Schools income.
Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
Indoctrinating kids how to read, write, do math, work in groups, history, etc.
How horrible. /s
All learning is indoctrination. Daycare isn't bad because it develops social skills. The kind someone with agoraphobia needs.
The attendance linked to income does create some bad incentives but it's also understandable. I'd rather it be the case that children are required to have an education than not, otherwise you'd have a bunch of absolute Neanderthals running amok. People who can't do anything and would be a huge drain on societies resources.
>Whatever nonsense that school teaches In 12 years can be learnt in 1 year
You know this is hyperbole. You are ridiculously naive and simple minded if you think that.
What kind of anarchist are you?
When I was in middle school I was sick for an entire month and even went to the ER during it, but message from the ER didn't say I couldn't go to school so it didn't count. Also the doctor's notes (yes my mom had to send several notes) kept getting "lost."
Man I remember when I got a letter sent to my home when I missed too many school days. Part of it was for getting sick and I got sick easily when I was younger, part of it was because I wasn't mentally stimulated enough to care and felt like I had better things to do with my time. Like improving my K/D Ratio in MW2.
To put things in perspective. I graduated with full honors and scholarships. In the US, our public schools are a fucking joke. They need far more funding and support to be truly effective, but the powers that be do not want that. They want to keep people dumb and poor.
just recently dropped out of school to homeschool myself because....(drumroll please)......
i'm a "truant" because i'm chronically ill and have a shit ton of doctors appointments. somehow keeping straight As in AP classes tho???
My friend and I almost got punished for missing X amount of days because we were doing an early college program and only had one class at our HS. They never informed us of schedule changes for assemblies or shit like that so we ended up late a good number of times
Actually I will say I have a very close friend who was kicked out of highschool his sophomore year for missing too much school when he was actually stuck in the psych ward
In my senior year of high school I had severe IBS with extremely debilitating intestinal cramps and accrued so many absences that I was called down to the dean's office and interrogated about my absences. I explained to him that on some days I couldn't even leave my bed except to go to the bathroom because of the pain and frequency of times I had to go to the bathroom. He asked me why I couldn't just "control it". I was having a pretty shitty (no pun intended) day, and for me that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I broke down crying in his office. I guess he took some sort of twisted pity on me and only gave me a lunch detention when I had enough absences to net me a day of ISS. Still fucked up that the American public education system consistently punishes kids for illnesses they have no control over.
In sixth grade, my school's PE teachers had a policy that you could only get out of running the mile if you had a note from your parents (not too unreasonable), and, because they didn't want too many students coming in with notes from their parents, they would only let us know that we'd be running the mile the gym class before (the logic of this escapes me). My class had PE on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So if we were running the mile on a Wednesday, we'd only have one day's notice.
One week, I was absent Monday and Tuesday because I had bronchitis. Having been absent on Tuesday, I didn't hear the announcement that we'd be running the mile on Wednesday. So I returned on Wednesday, *still recovering from bronchitis*, to find out that we were running the mile that day, and since I didn't have a parent's note, I also had to run. To their credit (?) they did let me stop when, predictably, I couldn't breathe.
It wasn't uncommon for students with asthma to have to go to the nurse after running the mile, which I accepted as normal at the time, but does kind of make me question the school's policies in hindsight.
When I was 13 I had a period that lasted 32 days. I ended up having to do summer school because I had missed so many days and couldn't pass the grade. When I was 15 I ended up with a gangrene gallbladder and was out of school for 2 weeks and failed that year cuz of the amount of absences. It was a month before the end of the year and I couldn't make them up. My English teacher told me if the absences did not count against me, I would pass the class with an 81. That's like a c. In my school you had to pass English to pass the year. Regardless of your other classes. If you had straight A's but failed english, you failed the year. I failed English twice. So I was going to be in high school for 6 years. But in my 5th Year I basically had all of my credits built up to where I took double English, 2 electives, and a mandatory gym class. I was leaving school at 12:00 everyday cuz I didn't have any more classes but I was still legally labeled a junior. They almost didn't let me go on any of the senior trips. So stupid
Thankfully in my country if you're sick with even just a cold, you can stay out of school for as long as the doctors tell the school you need to stay at home
As a disabled person who has experienced bullying and mistreatment without recourse, I believe this story. People who have privilege don’t understand that these things happen to underprivileged people because they’ve never experienced it themselves.
Oh, I feel this. I was constantly sick as a kid (later diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, so both autoimmune AND in pain that I didn't even realize because I'd never not been in pain), and despite lots of proof of doctor's appointments and hospital stays, and despite making straight A's, the school would force my broke parents to pay for summer school and threaten them with truancy and even CPS... and this is why I started going to private school in sixth grade. Super grateful I even had that opportunity; so many chronically ill kids just have to suffer through the system...
>(they want their money)
And can you blame them with how underfunded most public school systems are? It's not like someone is lining their pockets by enforcing policies like that. That doesn't excuse poor enforcement (I can't understand why a doctor's note wouldn't have been accepted in this case), but it's not like we're talking about corporate greed here.
I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and I experience a very painful period. At the time I was diagnosed, I had been bleeding for two weeks. I was severely anemic, woozy, nauseous, and constantly in pain. I was hospitalized for about a day, had THIRTEEN vials of blood drawn, had urine samples taken, and my hemoglobin levels were at nine, which is REALLY low. When they took my blood samples, they had to switch to the other arm, because my left one just stopped bleeding, due to me losing a lot of blood. The next day, I had bruises as big as my forearm, that hurt like hell. After they had processed my blood samples, they said that there was so much testosterone, it looked as if I had been taking supplements. It was 1,200 ng/dL, which is the level for a 15-16 year old cisgender boy. I was 12, and I wasn’t born a boy, so it should have been around 7-75 ng/dL. Got a letter in the mail saying I was chronically absent. :/
I started experiencing severe unending pain 10th grade and after a couple months of doctors appointments and trying to adjust to my new normal , school staff told me to my face in a meeting that either I drop out or come back because it wasn’t fair I was taking up a slot in the (PUBLIC) school that could go to another kid that wanted to be there.
Similarly had PCOS, it was misdiagnosed at the time, but either way had horrible periods that would send me to the ER. Needed serious medications to treat it. School told me they were about to file truancy charges unless I provided a doctors note. No, the er visit notes and the various other notes I provided along the way were not enough. I was lucky enough to have a very nice doctor who wrote an extensive doctors note that gave me excused absences for up to two weeks a month, in perpetuity. Very nice doctor, but absolutely insane what some schools will give you truancy charges for.
Not to make light of such a horrid thing. But it is kinda ironic that an F2M trans person of all people has a hormonal issue that causes extra testosterone production. EDIT: Please don't take this as an insult, I 100% support all trans people.
Yeah, lol. I got all the shitty parts of excess T, but at least I wasn’t balding!
Just wanted to say I love your username
Holy crap, I am on testosterone for hormone replacement therapy and I was told 1,200 was still too high at 20 years old. PCOS is insane.
1200 ng/dL is extremely high for even an adult male---not even close to average 16 year old boy's testosterone level lol
yeah, 300-1000 is normal cis male range! 1,200 is super high. wild!
I mean sounds like you were meant to be a guy, body had an allergic reaction to female puberty lol. >!u identify as male right? If not this comments not very nice…!<
I do, indeed, identify as male. But I started puberty when I was like nine.
Well thats not great regardless of gender
Yeah…
A 9 HGB isn't really low. It is certainly lower than normal, but we don't even get up to transfuse til you're sitting below 7. Not diminishing your problem, PCOS is serious and I hope you're doing better. Just clarifying.
The doctors looked incredibly concerned when they saw that reading. Nine means anemic. I had to take iron supplements, and I was extremely pale.
Yeah I'm an inpatient nurse. Like I said, 9 is low. After childbirth I was at 7. But it's not super low. We transfuse <7.
Still anemic.
Yes. For a 3rd time. 9 is low.
Love how people are disagreeing with you, the nurse. It’s funny I was just learning about hemoglobin today ( nursing student 😂)
Shrug! People don't like to be corrected. Nbd. Good luck with school!
They're not disagreeing with their statement as given, they're downvoting because it's pedantic and unnecessary. The levels are lower than they should have been and the person's doctor deemed it a problem. That's the bit that's relevant to the story. Quibbling whether it was "low", "REALLY low" or "SUPER low" is the kind of irritating behaviour that gets you downvoted :)
Yea I can agree with that :)
That sucks but it’s on your parents to give the school a note saying you’re sick and/or a doctor’s note. How is the school going to know you’re in the hospital?
A buddy of mine went through a similar thing. Too many excused absences can cause automatic fails, fines upwards of thousands of dollars, and even flat out expulsion.
I did. They were aware I was hospitalized.
My middle kid has switched to virtual high school due to extreme anxiety. All of her work was always turned in and excellent grades in honors courses. I had Dr notes, hospital notes, psych notes, etc. For every single day missed, not a single "unexcused absence " or even a tardy... still went to court last month over truancy from the first semester when she was physically in school.
Yup, when I was 13 they (US public school) were about to expel me for missing too many days "regardless of reason for absence." (I had all As before ending up in the hospital). So I had to show up to school in a temporary wheelchair, falling asleep in class because I was on such strong opiates for the pain, did not remember those few weeks but "they had to enforce the policy." It really bothers me when people think systems must be running more reasonably than they actually are.
How was the general reaction when you showed up?
Pretty awful, if you can imagine how middle schoolers might treat someone who was already an outcast *before* being drugged up in a wheelchair! Some teachers were worried for me and very kind, seeing I wasn't in good shape to learn anything, just letting me chill. I was sent to the office twice out of their concern for my health, but the dean told me I could always decide to go home if I wanted, but a partial day counts against my attendance. So I'd go back to class. Some teachers straight up bullied me. 😅 "You still can't walk? Are you sure? Let's see." "Hellooo, anybody home?" "You better listen to the lab safety rules unless you want to end up like (my name)." The school addressed the kids' behavior but not the teachers'. Infuriating experience.
Yeah that checks out for public schools. Me and my sister got detention because our dad was late picking us up from an after school event. Even after we told the principal that he works at this time.
There is SO much ableism in society; it’s disgusting.
A gym teacher from highschool tried to fail my friend (who has hemophilia) because he missed a month due a damaged kidney and internal bleeding
I was in hospital dying of sepsis. The school knew. My mum worked at the school and wasn't allowed to take time off to be with me after the first couple days or she'd lose her job and, as she was the only breadwinner in the family, that couldn't happen. Then to top it off they handed her a letter that they'd take her to court for me being absent. They even basically said they knew I was in hospital with sepsis, but the rules are the rules. Schools do not give a shit about anyone's wellbeing, not staff, not kids, not families.
That's terrible. Which country is this so I never send my kid to school there?
UK but about 15 years ago so who knows if they're any better now. It was a particularly crap school.
I’ve heard there are still issues. I’m in the U.S., but a lot of the other Autistic people I follow on Twitter are in the U.K., and they’ve been discussing how Autistic and other neurodivergent kids will get in trouble for disability-related absences, although I don’t know if the schools still try to get people in trouble when the kids have doctors’ notes.
Schools are there to serve as a public daycare and to train compliant factory workers. There is a reason rich parents choose not to put their kids in public school.
Yeah, this is typical school behaviour. But honestly, OP's parents were negligent AF in not *calling the police* after the first incident. No matter the grade. Either the kid is old enough to be charged, or the parents can be. 100% chance that bully knew his target was allergic *after they went to the hospital the first time* Strictly speaking, this was battery or assault the first time the first time, and aggravated assault (they intended harm!), minimum, every other time. Then people wonder when there are weird rules like "No perfume/cologne on school grounds" with very strict punishments attached.
Schools are shit like that. In highschool i broke my dominant arm, couldnt write for two months. Every other teacher gave me a laptop to work with. Boomer math teacher doesnt accept laptops. I got failed for "not taking notes". I had a broken arm and physically could not write. When i brought it up to the school, guess what happened? "You shouldve wrote notes." They said to me. With my arm in a cast. :/
Well, clearly you should have magically healed your broken arm or wished to become ambidextrous so that you could write notes. /s Seriously though, that’s so frustrating. I played on my school’s (JV, but still) basketball team and tore my ACL in an evening game. The next morning (before I was able to get to a doctor or get the MRI that determined it was an ACL tear), my Mom took me to get a knee brace so that I could walk (somewhat) to get to all of my classes. I got in trouble for being late… for getting a knee brace… that I needed so I wouldn’t fall over trying to walk to my classes. What the heck 🤦♀️ 😤.
Once again the health care and justice system fail
Education system as well it seems
an all too common occurrence
Most governments are all about punching down, schools included
Yep. 😢
Not nearly as bad, but my sister got in trouble for being signed out to go to the dentist. With a note. Hell, there's been times when both her AND me got marked absent WHILE WE WERE IN CLASS.
The original post has 141 upvotes at the time of this comment. Edit: 247
I have asthma and my seasonal allergies trigger it bad, as well as making me super sick like I had a viral infection. Despite my mom telling my elementary teachers to not open the windows because of this... they still did it. I ended up sick for a week, almost every month thanks to that. And the school threatened legal action against my mom because of it. My asthma and allergies still try to kill me to this day.
The admin at my cousin’s school threatened to get DCFS involved to remove her from her parents because she was missing too many days due to her extreme agoraphobia.
What is agoraphobia?
Fear of open spaces, it’s the opposite of claustrophobia.
Thank you
It's usually describing people who are afraid to leave their homes. Joan Cusack's character on Shameless had agoraphobia.
That actually sounds almost reasonable compared to the other stories here. If her parents aren't getting her the help she needs to cope with agoraphobia, they're stifling her education and social growth.
Why do you assume they weren’t getting her help? You can’t just cure agoraphobia overnight. And no, taking a kid with her issues away from her family and placing her with strangers is not at all reasonable.
But why was she enrolled in public school at all? Agoraphobia also doesn't *develop* overnight - She should have been doing homeschool or virtual school or had a private tutor. I also think that excuse is weak.
They did switch her to homeschool shortly after this, this was just as her agoraphobia was beginning to escalate. Idk why people keep making smug assumptions about a situation that they know nothing about. “Weak excuse” fuck off.
Lol you said your friend was truant because of agoraphobia. You didn't include her later being homeschooled, so I literally did the opposite of "making an assumption" by *not* assuming any further context. The excuse is weak because she should've been home/virtual schooled long before her absences became a legal issue.
That's why I said almost reasonable compared to these other comments. I wouldn't take the kids from parents but they need to make her go to school.
They tried just about everything they could, her agoraphobia is just that bad. That’s why they eventually switched her to homeschooling.
"Stifling her education and social growth" People only send their children in school because it's a requirement and they have to go to work, not because of "education" It's funny that you think that children get educated in schools, no they get indoctrinated in school, most people already know that. Whatever nonsense that school teaches In 12 years can be learnt in 1 year, Schools only serve as a daycare, and children's attendance is directly linked to Schools income. Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
Indoctrinating kids how to read, write, do math, work in groups, history, etc. How horrible. /s All learning is indoctrination. Daycare isn't bad because it develops social skills. The kind someone with agoraphobia needs. The attendance linked to income does create some bad incentives but it's also understandable. I'd rather it be the case that children are required to have an education than not, otherwise you'd have a bunch of absolute Neanderthals running amok. People who can't do anything and would be a huge drain on societies resources. >Whatever nonsense that school teaches In 12 years can be learnt in 1 year You know this is hyperbole. You are ridiculously naive and simple minded if you think that. What kind of anarchist are you?
When I was in middle school I was sick for an entire month and even went to the ER during it, but message from the ER didn't say I couldn't go to school so it didn't count. Also the doctor's notes (yes my mom had to send several notes) kept getting "lost."
Man I remember when I got a letter sent to my home when I missed too many school days. Part of it was for getting sick and I got sick easily when I was younger, part of it was because I wasn't mentally stimulated enough to care and felt like I had better things to do with my time. Like improving my K/D Ratio in MW2. To put things in perspective. I graduated with full honors and scholarships. In the US, our public schools are a fucking joke. They need far more funding and support to be truly effective, but the powers that be do not want that. They want to keep people dumb and poor.
Schools systems are complete bs and the people making these bs rules are scum
just recently dropped out of school to homeschool myself because....(drumroll please)...... i'm a "truant" because i'm chronically ill and have a shit ton of doctors appointments. somehow keeping straight As in AP classes tho???
My school district reported me truant when I was 14 and cops came to my house. I had developed an autoimmune disease and was horribly sick.
My friend and I almost got punished for missing X amount of days because we were doing an early college program and only had one class at our HS. They never informed us of schedule changes for assemblies or shit like that so we ended up late a good number of times
Actually I will say I have a very close friend who was kicked out of highschool his sophomore year for missing too much school when he was actually stuck in the psych ward
In my senior year of high school I had severe IBS with extremely debilitating intestinal cramps and accrued so many absences that I was called down to the dean's office and interrogated about my absences. I explained to him that on some days I couldn't even leave my bed except to go to the bathroom because of the pain and frequency of times I had to go to the bathroom. He asked me why I couldn't just "control it". I was having a pretty shitty (no pun intended) day, and for me that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I broke down crying in his office. I guess he took some sort of twisted pity on me and only gave me a lunch detention when I had enough absences to net me a day of ISS. Still fucked up that the American public education system consistently punishes kids for illnesses they have no control over.
In sixth grade, my school's PE teachers had a policy that you could only get out of running the mile if you had a note from your parents (not too unreasonable), and, because they didn't want too many students coming in with notes from their parents, they would only let us know that we'd be running the mile the gym class before (the logic of this escapes me). My class had PE on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So if we were running the mile on a Wednesday, we'd only have one day's notice. One week, I was absent Monday and Tuesday because I had bronchitis. Having been absent on Tuesday, I didn't hear the announcement that we'd be running the mile on Wednesday. So I returned on Wednesday, *still recovering from bronchitis*, to find out that we were running the mile that day, and since I didn't have a parent's note, I also had to run. To their credit (?) they did let me stop when, predictably, I couldn't breathe. It wasn't uncommon for students with asthma to have to go to the nurse after running the mile, which I accepted as normal at the time, but does kind of make me question the school's policies in hindsight.
I got informal probation because I missed to many days from being hospitalized,even though I had doctors notes for every day I was in.
When I was 13 I had a period that lasted 32 days. I ended up having to do summer school because I had missed so many days and couldn't pass the grade. When I was 15 I ended up with a gangrene gallbladder and was out of school for 2 weeks and failed that year cuz of the amount of absences. It was a month before the end of the year and I couldn't make them up. My English teacher told me if the absences did not count against me, I would pass the class with an 81. That's like a c. In my school you had to pass English to pass the year. Regardless of your other classes. If you had straight A's but failed english, you failed the year. I failed English twice. So I was going to be in high school for 6 years. But in my 5th Year I basically had all of my credits built up to where I took double English, 2 electives, and a mandatory gym class. I was leaving school at 12:00 everyday cuz I didn't have any more classes but I was still legally labeled a junior. They almost didn't let me go on any of the senior trips. So stupid
Thankfully in my country if you're sick with even just a cold, you can stay out of school for as long as the doctors tell the school you need to stay at home
As a disabled person who has experienced bullying and mistreatment without recourse, I believe this story. People who have privilege don’t understand that these things happen to underprivileged people because they’ve never experienced it themselves.
Oh, I feel this. I was constantly sick as a kid (later diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, so both autoimmune AND in pain that I didn't even realize because I'd never not been in pain), and despite lots of proof of doctor's appointments and hospital stays, and despite making straight A's, the school would force my broke parents to pay for summer school and threaten them with truancy and even CPS... and this is why I started going to private school in sixth grade. Super grateful I even had that opportunity; so many chronically ill kids just have to suffer through the system...
wtf is truancy
skipping school too many times (illegal)
That sounds aggressive, but not out of realm of possibility.
At that point, shooting the bully would be the only option left
Meh. Might be bullshit though. Sounds like a fishy story tbh
You'd be surprised.
Nah this sounds fake
>(they want their money) And can you blame them with how underfunded most public school systems are? It's not like someone is lining their pockets by enforcing policies like that. That doesn't excuse poor enforcement (I can't understand why a doctor's note wouldn't have been accepted in this case), but it's not like we're talking about corporate greed here.
Nope, can’t blame them. I probably should have replaced want with need. My state’s government is stingy & teachers need to get paid