At Lake City High School, students are only allowed to miss four days of school in every class period. If you miss more than four days or periods in a semester, you have to get a D- or higher on your final exam. If you do not pass with a D- or higher, you do not get the credit for the class even if you have a D or above in the class. In other words, if you fail the exam with too many absences, you fail the class.

Some students agree that the absences should be raised to at least ten days missed. Four is such a small number, and it’s really easy to get sick. Students are prone to get sick often, especially since there are so many people in the school. Almost everyday, someone at school has a sickness, whether it’s the flu, strep, or just a nasty virus. Sickness is inevitable, and if your immune system isn’t that strong, you are more likely to get sick easily.

Aracelli Barron, staff writer of the journalism team, agrees that instead of missing only four days of school, “Students should be able to miss ten days because if people are sick, people are sick, and are more than probably going to miss more than four days, maybe not in the same week, but throughout the semester.”

Family emergencies and vacations are also a big reason for students to miss school. Sometimes things happen to a family member that causes students to have to miss school to go see them, and sometimes they live in another state. Also, some families have traditions. For example, every fifth of December, they go  to Hawaii, meaning the student also misses school for those vacations too. There are many things that cause kids to miss some school, so raising the limit number of absences could help, as well as making sure students don’t have panic attacks at the end of the semester because they have missed five days of school.