Student absences cause feelings of stress in schools
A student's absences shown on Aeries (Briana Jauregui, The Puma Prensa)
By Briana Jauregui, staff writer
Absences amongst students in school are common. Whether it be for a family emergency or the flu, we see empty desks daily in our classes. However, with an absence comes the stress that the majority of students go through due to a lack of accommodations and communication towards absent people from certain teachers.
Although some teachers allow plenty of time to make up work, others have not seem to have found an effective way of accommodating an absent student.
School can be a very stressful environment with the vast majority of students at Maria Carrillo High School having six classes to make up work for. When they’re out for more than one day, it can be very easy for a student to fall behind due to all of the missed in-class assignments, tests, lectures, and instructions. This just gives a student an overall tougher time when it comes to homework, especially for those who take Advanced Placement or Honors courses which contain harder concepts and bigger work loads. Asking a student to hand in homework or classwork as soon as they come back can be stress-inducing for someone who barely has any clue of what happened during a valuable period of class time where a lot of information was missed. “It’s hard to catch up and expect [good] results as if you were not absent,” said junior Kiera Schroeder.
Many other students also feel as though absences can be an unnecessarily tense time when it comes to catching up with the rest of the class. During a week-long absence for Payton Hartley, a junior, she says she felt under pressure trying to finish all of her missing work while also having to keep up with her newly-assigned work. “Few teachers gave however much time I needed. Some teachers gave me 3-4 days to get stuff done which was little time for me,” said Hartley.
Students definitely feel strained to finish any absent work as soon as possible, which can undoubtedly affect the quality of their work that causes an overall bringing down of their grades. “It's a huge pressure. It's really hard to balance the new work you have coming in and the old work,” said Hartley.
A handful of teachers, unfortunately, expect all absent work to be completely finished, and turned in on the day of a student's return to school, meaning they would have to do all of the work they missed while they're out, despite not having heard the instructions or background information for certain assignments. If a student is absent, they are likely absent for a reason–and they're not able to do work while they are out most of the time. It is unfair to expect a student to complete assignments immediately while they're not even able to be present in school due to reasons that can cause them to not be able to work at home such as a family or medical dilemma. “It’s difficult to work when you’re in a situation that makes you absent,” said Schroeder.
Some teachers supply late passes if students do in fact need a little bit more time than provided, but the passes are usually only limited to one or two per semester. These can easily be used up very quickly considering the amount of work and information taught each term. Depending on the teacher, some late passes only give as small a period of time as just one extra day to turn in an absent assignment if a pass is used.
Teachers should be taking into consideration the circumstances and creating an encouraging as well as more relaxed environment. Mental health should be factored into the thought process of teachers and staff when handling hours of class missed as well as all of the assignments.
There are a variety of ways that I believe teachers can provide aid towards a student who missed crucial class time. As a start, communication plays a large role. Students should know that they can rely on their teachers for support and feel as though they can reach out for help if they need it on any missed assignments and concepts that may be difficult to understand upon return. Organizing assignments in file cabinets, providing a slideshow with information covered in class, or even just keeping up with posting assignments and lectures online would help a lot too. Providing one on-one-time during Advocacy or even during a free time in class can be especially useful for someone who was absent for an extended period of time. According to the California Education Code, each teacher must establish a reasonable time period for absent students to complete missing assignments. If an absence is due to something a little less serious, I believe that a reasonable system that may work for teachers and students, is providing the same amount of time to make up an assignment as the length of their absence. For example, if a student was gone for a week, a week should be given to make up the work upon return of the student.
Overall, it can be very difficult for teachers to manage absences without communicating with the student, but it can especially be difficult for a student as they are the ones needing to deal with the pressures as well as all of the pent up stress that only keeps building up. The key is for teachers and students to communicate, and create a system that works for both the students and the teacher.