Private HS didn’t honor medically excused absence, penalized child’s grades

Applying to College
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Sorry this happened to OP’s daughter.

This comes up often at my work. Depending on the diagnosis, the provider should have advised getting either an IEP/504/ or Home Medical set up and when school first began and not after the fact.

Excusing the absence is one thing, making sure school work is done is another. They often get conflated. And often times, individual teachers make up their own rules as how they allow the students to make up work/test in the absence of any written contract that documents alternative plans during medical absences.

ADA may or may not apply. I didn’t read enough information to know if OP’s D has a qualifying diagnosis and has a plan on file and is missing school due to that diagnosis and school is made aware and has alternative education plan in place.

My advice to people in similar cases is always plan ahead, meet with principal or VP as well as school nurse and get a written plan in place. OP’s D goes to a private school, but students in public school is entitled to get Home Medical or Home School / Tutor funded by the State which usually comes out of the public school’s budget. Almost always, when parents ask for “Home” anything, schools suddenly becomes very accommodating.

In the OP’s case, I suspect more info is needed by the school. Or there is more to the story than we know. Get a lawyer if you have to.

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Unfortunately, the only thing the doctor’s note does for you is help you to avoid a CPS case. Your daughter was severely chronically absent and it affected her.

While she can not fail or have her grade lowered because of attendance alone, the grade is lowered because the student as a result of the student not in class they may be missing do-nows, pop quizzes, in-class assignments, exit tickets, etc., which may be part of the grade.

My school runs on a semester system where there are approximately 29 days in the 6-week marking period. If a student is out 9 days, they have missed a third of the marking period.

As @cy7878 mentioned upstream, schools offer hospital school, for students who are in the hospital and home instruction for students who are ill and cannot attend school. These often require a doctor not stating how long the student will be out and are coordinated between the home school and the office of home instruction, An adult must be present in the home because the teacher will come to the house and teach 3 periods a day.

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FWIW and as I understand things, some version of this is not uncommon. We’ve lived in 3 separate school districts in 2 states and in each there was definitely a “required minimum number of school days in attendance” in order for the kid to be considered to have completed the grade.

Where we lived, it wouldn’t mean you failed the class or got a lower grade, just literally that they would not (could not, legally as I understand) promote you to the subsequent grade. In some cases I believe you could make up days over the summer, but am not sure whether that’s an option for you here. Sounds like not, unfortunately.

Anyway OP I would re-ask what @thumper1 asked above: was there any discussion or warning of this issue as the threshold was approached? That seems like a reasonable expectation.

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The school has a policy and it has to apply it equally. I think you’re stuck with that. (Ours did too, and it seemed that a lot of it had to do with student well-being, as in it just wasn’t tenable to get too far behind, and part of it was to ensure that teachers weren’t being required to provide tutorials to students who weren’t in class, especially for non-medical reasons.) Other schools, public and private, had different policies.

With that said, I am guessing you aren’t the first to trip over this, so while you are understandably upset, I would try to have a conversation with your child’s CC at school and get their advice on how best to address this. They may be able to collaborate with you to find a good solution. It could be in the CC letter, or it could be with the teachers, or something else. If that doesn’t work, see if the Dean or Head can help.

In our case, the one time we needed an exception to the policy, we were guided in how to thread that needle by the Dean, who explained why they had the rule, the issues in applying it differently to different students, and what he and we could do to minimize consequences. We approached not as potential litigants, but as a family that really needed help, and I think it helped.

Fingers crossed it will for you too.

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Very good advice!

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Kids attending school while sick threaten kids who do have medical disabilities.

Our experience with a dancer was similar to that of @PrdMomto1. Our experience with a kid with several serious chronic illnesses, a two month recovery from a surgery, and a 504 plan since kindergarten, still required a lawyer to help the school implement. I presented the lawyer’s advice as a helpful solution and it was not adversarial, though it showed I meant business.

Advocacy needs to happen for private and religious schools. There are already advocacy organizations for public schools. I also got advice from the Federal Dept. of Education, Office for Civil Rights.

None of this is relevant but this situation is terrible and the policy threatens the health of everyone, including kids vulnerable to disease.

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Key words…none of this is relevant in this situation.

I would suggest a friendly discussion with the college counselor at this prestigious Catholic high school on how they can best address this. It is in the school’s best interest to have students get accepted to colleges. Perhaps they will be helpful.

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Thank you for all of these helpful responses. I will provide some more info, as my original post was written in the middle of the night. Can’t sleep. I’m never one to hold onto anger but this situation is definitely challenging my emotions.

-Legal recourse not really an option as there is no Federal Funding. I do know that were this to happen in a public school, it would be illegal.

-In regards to ADA reference, DS gets migraines which adds to the absence total. This year she also had a painful GI problem that had doctors baffled. She lost 1 1/2 weeks because it took that long for her to even see a specialist that knew what was going on.

-We were warned at this point in the year. LEAVE school to finish online somewhere or don’t be absent again. If you are, you will lose credit. For DD, who had already quit her job to focus on school and who had to withdraw from her dance team due to the illness, staying in school was the only option as this is where her life is. (Yes, she is a senior). Nearly a full month later after excellent attendance she gets the flu.

-In remembering the warning, I had to go against my own morals and senses and I urged my DD to go anyway. DD, who clearly is more grounded in her own morals, said “No way. One of my teachers is elderly and another just had a baby. I refuse to put them at risk”. She stayed at home for 3 1/2 days so as not to spread her contagious disease. THESE are the days where she missed tests and quizzes and got zeros for them. This is the thanks she got for upholding the values that her school claims to instill.

-We knew we had an option to withdraw. At this point, though, DD would have had to repeat the entire semester, and have her college application cycle likely pushed off until next year, as she would have had no senior grades to report AND would have delayed her graduation. This would obviously be an enormous disruption to her life and not worth it, so she chose the C’s.

-When asked about the star athletes who are barely ever at school, admin explained that their circumstances are different and they have “pre-arranged accommodations”

-DD never asked for any plan, any tutor, anything outside of what is already built into the system. Just wanted to take her tests.

-We will succinctly describe this situation on the applications as I don’t know if I can trust how well her CC at school will speak up for her. No acceptances yet. She applied to one ED and was denied. When applying to UC’s she did include a statement about this situation as it was unfolding. Ironically she did not apply EA anywhere else as she was so confident she would do amazing this fall and wanted those grades to be included in the decision.

-Yes, community college is a great avenue to get into the UC’s, but it would not be what DD had worked so hard for the past 4 years. She will now always be left to wonder “what if”.

-It seems that there’s really no other recourse other than shaming on all social media channels.

-What makes it feels so much worse is that I’M PAYING THIS SCHOOL A LOT OF MONEY! Worst financial investment ever.

If you’ve reached the end of this post, thank you for your time. I just needed another chance to vent.

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Assuming you have already appealed this to the headmaster, your best chance is to plead with the college counselor for a statement that those C grades do not reflect her ability or academic work. Frankly large public universities likely won’t be moved but a LAC could. Hopefully the counselor provided a list of likely schools and perhaps will make calls on her behalf. I would really consider an ED2. Layoff the social media. You need the school as an ally in this, and the school’s statement carries much more weight than your daughter’s.

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If she goes to community college, then the high school will have to list the community college in its college matriculation listings, which may look worse for them to prestige focused prospective students.

In any case, community college is still college, so good work in high school will help her do well in college.

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Just an idea… Could she ask the teachers if she could take the quizzes even though it has been averaged into her grade as a zero (which she understands:and accepts), and then ask her CC to explain what happened, noting that she had to adhere to school policy, but that had they been averaged in, her grade would have been x?

With 3.5 days of illness, it seems odd that it’d bring her grade down so much, so this might put it in context?

Somehow, you need to show acceptance of school rules (because a college will want you to follow theirs) AND that the grade does not represent her mastery of the material.

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Vent away. But I also understand that it isnt unusual for teachers to down grade those who miss major quizzes or tests.

It does sound like your child has missed several days already this semester. You were given forewarning and you chose the roll the dice. They did their due diligence and informed you of the consequences.

There are many schools with rolling admissions that would likely still admit her.

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I’m so sorry, @Kalanamc :mending_heart:. My daughters both have chronic migraines. D19 missed 60 days in 8th grade. Despite being a star student and very involved in the community, and despite the school nurses being totally aware of her disability (from age 5), this was treated as a discipline problem by the administration. It was a public school, so we won the battle in the end, without a lawyer, but it was awful.

Chronic migraines are a debilitating neurological disorder, and definitely a disability under the ADA. I think that even in a private school that does not receive funding the student must be allowed reasonable accommodation for their disability. Also, even if the school does not receive funding, they cannot discriminate. By law they can not treat students with disabilities differently than, for example, student athletes.

Whenever my daughters get an infectious disease, like the flu, they get more severe and often constant migraines, making it harder to bounce back. I admire your daughter for wanting to protect her teachers. If she hadn’t already missed due to migraines, she would not have had such a severe penalty for staying home for those 3.5 days.

I am angry and sad on your daughter’s behalf. Migraines are so misunderstood and stigmatized😠. They are a neurological disorder, with most likely an immunological component too. The good news is that my daughter’s college (public) has been such a positive experience. Understanding, supportive, accommodating, you name it. D19 graduated and was accepted to her top choice for graduate school, and D21 has a 4.0 in her major. There are ways to set things up so our kids can thrive and succeed despite illness and disability.

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This is a problem IMO and could show discrimination. BUT you don’t have time to get a lawyer and have that play out unless your D would consider taking a gap year.

Did your D ask to make up the homework/tests/quizzes that she missed when she was out? Do athletes get to make up the missed work? Obviously one can’t foresee when they might have an infectious disease.

Did she lose credit or get credit but received lower grades? Was the potential for lower grades known?

What are her UC GPAs? Has she applied to all UCs? Any CSUs? I agree 2plustrio who suggests getting some rolling apps in to schools with relatively higher admits. Posters can recommend schools, but we need her unweighted GPA and test score (and UC GPAs).

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Thank you for this. Luckily her migraines alone have definitely pushed the attendance boundary in the past without consequence but when any other unpredictable virus (like this year) is added into the equation it is a huge problem for them. We tried to get her to transfer to a public HS after sophomore year but she really loves this school, especially the teachers, and it would have been too upsetting and anxiety-provoking to start over somewhere else for her Junior year. She refused. We will definitely make sure she is set up in a better environment for college.

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Your student should register with the college’s accommodations office after acceptance. She will need to do this herself, my son did the meeting virtually so I could listen off screen.

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And she will need sufficient medical documentation when she does this. What she needs will vary by college. And the types of accommodations will as well. You need to tease this out.

I will say, at some colleges, large numbers of absences will result in the student being asked to withdraw. Or their grade will be significantly lower. In college, you are expected to learn what is presented in class…and missing a huge number of classes prevents that from happening (viewpoint of some colleges).

I hope she has some sure things for acceptances on her list of applications. Even with some C grades, there are plenty of colleges that would welcome this student.

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She actually does have a disability that has been documented by her pediatrician and neurologist and the school has this information. In and of itself, migraines alone have never caused enough absences where it became a problem in the past. Only when combined with an unfortunate virus/es it forces more absences beyond what they allow.

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In many college classes, attendance is not tracked or counted, but the student is expected to learn or make up any material from missed classes.

College is generally much less supervised than high school, which can be good or bad, depending on the student.

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Migraines are a disability under the ADA and presumably the Rehab Act. I am just appalled. I understand this school gets no federal funding.

My kid got through Harvard with migraines, seizures, type 1 diabetes and other issues. Initially migraines were the biggest factor. We found even this rigorous college was far more understanding and accommodating than the high school, if that is any encouragement.

It is understandable that your daughter decided to stay but I wish she had left, as do you most likely.

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