Being sick does not always equate to staying home from school. Students can be seen — or rather, heard — in their classes sniffling and sneezing all throughout the period. Even if ill students make sure to wash their hands consistently and cover their mouths when they sneeze, they still pose the threat of exposing others to their illness.

Despite having the opportunity to take time off from school to recover, students still go because the school system, as it is currently, makes it difficult to do so. Spending time to stay home and recover does not seem worth getting behind on work.

The current system for making up schoolwork is that students have the same amount of days that they missed to make up an assignment. By itself, this system seems reasonable. The issues arise when the scope is broadened to the rest of the schoolwork.

Take this for example: if a student were to miss a six-period day and come back the following six-period day, then that student would be required to finish the homework that was given out from all of their classes that day as well as the missed classwork and homework from the previous day. This could be almost three times the work that they would have otherwise been doing had they not missed a single day of school.

This is assuming that the classwork could be made up easily. If the student were to miss a class period in which there was a class discussion, a lab activity or an important presentation planned, then not much could be done on the part of the student to make that up. On top of that, missing a test or quiz often requires time to be spent outside of school to make it up.

With these factors in mind, students often feel that they would much rather go to school than stay home and recover.

Something needs to change. A new system could be put into place that allows more time for students to make up missed schoolwork or even one that allows students to do more of it at home on the day that they are sick. If an assignment, class lecture notes or other supplementary materials were published online for each class day, then students would have the opportunity to get on top of work before they even return back to school.

Either way, students need to be able to feel as if taking time from school to care for themselves is worth it. School already demands enough from students. It does not need to demand that they turn a blind eye to their health.