Each August, as Ramaz students prepare for the upcoming school year, students open the newly updated student handbook to see what kind of rules have been added or adjusted. This year, to the student body’s surprise, the new residency policy was introduced. This policy has been the source of many issues in the first two weeks of school.
The residency policy states that if students miss ten percent of their classes in a given class, the highest their grade can be is a B+. If a student misses twenty percent of their classes in a given class, the highest their grade can be is a C+. No matter how strong the student is academically, if they miss a certain percentage of classes, their grade gets hit.
This, however, means that for classes that meet four times a week, a student can only miss five days of classes before their course grade is impacted. While there are exceptions for this rule, including club trips, missing a few days of school has become detrimental to students. These five days are intended to be sick days, but a student is not in control of how many times they get sick. Saying “just wear a mask” does not solve the problem as it doesn’t optimize the health of the sick student. Missing a day of school is always nerve wracking. Having to catch up on notes while recovering from a cold or getting over jet lag has always been extraordinarily stressful for students. Now, students cannot even get sick or go on vacation without having to worry about their grade. Getting a cold or going on vacation can result in your grade dropping dramatically and undeservedly. The residency policy is turning out to be dangerous for students who are forced to pick their grades before their health.
As the school year has unfolded, more and more students have been dropping like flies with a painful and miserable cold; I myself am a victim of this virus. In fact, the senior grade WhatsApp chat sent out a poll titled Are you sick? This poll resulted in over twenty seniors saying that they are sick. As the conversation continued, seniors stated that they are still going to go to school – sniffling, sneezing, aching, coughing, and fever ridden – because they don’t want their grade to be taken down. This means that their virus is going to spread to countless other students and teachers around the school, leaving them to suffer in the building because they don’t want their grade to be lowered.
While there are students with attendance issues, good students should not be penalized for getting sick every once in a while. It is completely human to fall ill to a cold and we’re being told to pick between our grade and the right to sit in bed shivering, sneezing, and being sick. If we pick our grade, we hurt other students. If we pick our recovery, we hurt ourselves. No one wins and it’s all because of the new residency policy.
Let kids be sick.
