Empty Desks

In a school that places enormous emphasis on attendance, it can be difficult when life interferes.

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photo by Lucie Flagg

When family responsibility gets in the way, it’s hard to prioritize school, despite our best intentions.

Full confession: I was on the 18-day list last year — and it stripped me of many privileges within the school environment. It’s an understandable consequence for those who are absent too frequently, but no one could have ever expected me to fall ill with pneumonia, experience a family death, and have a surgical procedure all within the course of a month.

I entered a very poor cycle early on into the school year: I’d get sick, miss school, have makeup work, get too stressed, get sicker, and miss school again. The absences started to rack up pretty quickly. By the end of the year, I had twenty-three full-day and sixteen part-day absences. Missing school became a stress trigger for me, and I was excited to experience a clean slate starting in the new 2019-2020 school year.

Being overseas, I had no service or Wi-Fi. When I finally came back to school, I had to tell my teachers the absolute truth: ‘I’ve done nothing.’

My excitement was cut short early this year. So far, I’ve already been absent for over one third of the days in session. But this time around was different. I wasn’t absent because I was sick or had doctor’s appointments but rather because I was in Scotland.

Right off the bat, I’ll say that it wasn’t a vacation. Sure, I had fun and visited tourist places like the Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace, but I was there for a different reason. My sister is entering her first year at the University of St. Andrews, about an hour and a half’s drive outside of the capital city of Edinburgh. Of course, I could have stayed home and come to the second week of school here at NASH like everyone else, but I would have beat myself up if I missed helping move my sister to Europe.

I did not want to miss school at the beginning of the year, but I would have deeply regretted missing out on moving my sister into college overseas. photo by Lucie Flagg

Being overseas, I had no service or Wi-Fi. When I finally came back to school, I had to tell my teachers the absolute truth: “I’ve done nothing.” My teachers were very understanding and accommodating, but the stress still lingered. Missing school, whether it’s a day here and there or five days in a row, is usually not advisable. But I prioritize my health and my family and would rather be stressed for a few weeks than upset that I missed this opportunity. Yet when the missed worksheets started stacking up on my desk and due dates for assignments that I never learned how to do were set, I started questioning my own reasoning. 

Being in a school district that takes great strides to ensure phenomenal attendance and exceptional test scores, I returned to the U.S. and felt like I was drowning in papers and BlackBoard notifications.

However, after being absent for twenty-three days last year and already five days this year, I’ve learned that my happiness measures far beyond my grades. For my whole life, people inside and outside of the school have told me this. It was difficult for me to drop everything and leave the country for a week, not knowing what was going to lie ahead. Missing the second week of school was hard, but it made me happy. This trip was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I wasn’t going to sacrifice spending time with my family so that I could stay up to date on schoolwork. 

Occasionally, we have to evaluate the events in our lives because, twenty years from now, I’ll remember my amazing trip to Scotland, not last night’s math homework.