Illness and School Absence: Schooling Through Surgery and Recovery
5 MINUTE READ • STUDENT STORIES
If you’ve ever had a medical absence from school, you know: you’re usually healthy until you’re not. At least that’s how it was for me. One day, I was a healthy, albeit awkward, teenager, and the next, my doctor was telling me I’d need back surgery or I’d be in a wheelchair by the time I turned 30. It was a no-brainer - I was scheduled for spinal fusion surgery three days before the start of my senior year of high school, regardless of what that meant for my illness and school absence.
When we talked to my guidance counselor, the school’s stance was that I had no choice but to drop out and get my GED or to be held back and graduate a year later. For a rising senior in high school, those words were devastating. What did they mean, I wouldn’t be graduating next year??
My situation is not so uncommon. Nearly 60% of students with chronic conditions routinely miss school, and absenteeism is one of the strongest predictors of dropping out. For me, my surgery was going to have a significant recovery period, one that included relearning how to just roll over and sit up in bed.
Chronic Illness and School Absence Advocates
At that moment, I had what so many students do not - an advocate for their education, someone who wasn’t going to stop fighting for what was right. For me, that person was my mother. When she heard the words “drop out” she vowed that wasn’t going to happen to me and argued with state and national officials, tapped into a network of disabled students across America, and threatened to call the ACLU more than once.
My story has a happy ending - my mom was able to protect my right to education under the Americans with Disability Act and I was able to continue my studies from afar. This was back in 2006 before Grad Solutions existed and provided students with another alternative: to study and learn at their own pace, on their own time. So the district sent a teacher to my house to teach me earth science, and senior AP English, and government - so that when I felt healthy enough to return to school I could.
Grad Solutions Helps Students with Chronic Illness
Grad Solutions could have provided my district with an alternative to dropping out, but it also could have given me the opportunity to master my own education and to advocate for myself. Students with chronic illness deserve equal access to educational opportunities in a virtual setting.
If this is you, know that you deserve the same educational opportunities as your peers and that your high school diploma should not be one more thing that your illness takes from you. Grad Solutions specifically caters to a population of chronically ill students, providing them and our entire student body access to extracurriculars, tutoring support, and mentorship virtually. If you are ready to take the next step toward getting your high school diploma, we want to talk to you. Don’t let your illnesses take one more thing from you.
So I had back surgery three days before my senior year of high school. But I was also the drama club president that year. I went on to walk at graduation with honors. I went on to attend the University of Arizona with a full scholarship, graduating and working to be fully out of debt by the time I was 23 years old. Even though my back hurts some days, I turned 30 last year and I’m definitely not in a wheelchair.
Samantha du Preez
Samantha du Preez is currently the Director of Marketing and Community Engagement at Modern Classrooms Project. She is a former educator, passionate about increasing access and quality of educational opportunities for all students. She can most often be found befriending animals at parties and impressing strangers with her good posture.