Everyone has told their parents that they are not feeling well in the hopes of skipping a day of school. Whether it is a stomach ache, or a fever, there is always an excuse not to go. Even so, what about the kids who do not feel well, and get a bad reputation?

It is undeniable that missing school can be the downfall of students, so sometimes it scares them to even think about missing a day. With the hopes that there will not be a test that day, or that something interesting does not happen, they have to fight the urge to stay home, even if they are sick. This happens because school has normalized the idea of “unless you are dying, then you can get to school.” This further causes students to feel left behind or miss valuable information, especially when teachers use in-class participation as grades, grade. One could get a zero out of 50 for just missing a day.

“With the district having a new policy on tardies and missing games it’s hard, especially when there are sports teams who get home from the game late,” senior Chase Grable said. “For example, I had a hockey game for the school team, an hour and a half away that started at 8 [p.m.], I didn’t get home till 1 a.m., and I was still expected to come to school at 6 a.m.”

From just a physical sickness standpoint, some have been negligent for mental sickness. With not only vomiting and sickness being reasons people want to stay home, students can also suffer from a multitude of mental health issues that affect their determination, ability and overall choice if they want to or can go to school at all. With just one in five students having mental health issues of some kind, [Statistic from the American Psychological Association] there is a good chance someone you know could have a form of mental health issues. Considering there are about 500 students in the high school, at least 100 of them may have a form of mental health issues.

With so many different symptoms and side effects from mental illnesses, it makes it hard for some people to attend school. There are so many things that students suffer from, and some do not even have a mental illness, but the overall struggle and weight that school bears on a single person is so much that students prioritize school over themselves, further hurting them.

“As someone who struggles to come to school often, it is hard to prioritize myself over school because if I miss a singular day, I could be a whole lesson behind,” sophomore Caden Beringer said. “The system the school has created causes students to have to prioritize themselves over their overall health.”

classes, as they will last longer than a typical high school period. Freedom also does not do midterms and finals, which can be looked at as both a pro and a con. However, the pro of it is that students can go through the year and not have to worry about taking midterms and finals.

Freedom is very different compared to the schools around us. Although some schools are as close as 10 minutes down the road to maybe even up to 45 minutes. Freedom students are confined to the wall of our school and tend to lose sight of how unique our school is.