What To Do If the School Doesn’t Cooperate

Disclaimer: I am just going to clarify that I am a teacher so I am speaking from both a teaching perspective and a student perspective who has gone through this but I am not a medical or a legal professional, please consult them if you need them. 

Why might your school challenge you?

A school in any given year only has so much money allocated to each student. You can look up how much money each student gets through Google, it is public record if you are at a public school.

So if each student is allocated $10,000 a year and 1 student needs at home tutoring for 5 hours a week at $35 an hour for the entire 40 week school year that’s $7,000 a year only going to that one student. Which might not sound like a lot but also take into account the school still needs to pay its teachers, bus drivers, mortgage, janitors, cafeteria people, nurses, and heat even if your student is not in the building. 

So while each student is allocated 10,000 a person, if you have 30 teachers in the building and are paying each one 65,000 then you need 195 students in the building to make up for it. Your student not being in the building is pulling resources away from the rest of the school.  Your student 100% deserves an equal education.

What might happen?

A few things might happen and it really depends on your documentation.

If you do not have documentation saying that your student is sick and unable to attend school, your student will fail due to unexcused absences and you will most likely be reported to the police for truancy.

If you have documentation then the school might still object to your student being out but you have the documents you need to prove that your student needs to learn in an out of school environment. That being said the school might still call the police,  DCF or even try to fail your student. They might try to send your student to a different school. 

What to do?

If you do not have documentation, you need it.  There is no way to fight anything the school does without it.  You need a doctor’s note if not a slew of doctors’ notes to back you up.

Consider what’s best for you student, if there is an alternative setting that you do think would suit them better look into it. As a teacher I’ve seen online public school offered as an alternative to a student being in and out of school.  This was a great solution for that student but your student will not receive a diploma from your public school.

You might hire an educational advocate or even a lawyer. Be ready for this if it escalates with the school. This might not be financially possible for some families, would you consider paying for an online program out of pocket? Or even paying for tutors out of pocket? That being said, your student will not receive a diploma from their public school.  If that is important then you should consider hiring an educational advocate or a lawyer. It is very likely that you will have to bring the school to court or at least meditation. 

How did your school react to your POTS diagnosis?