Catholic School Expels Student With Leukemia Because That’s What Jesus Would Do
If there’s anything that should be considered an ‘excused absence’ from school, it’s having a life-threatening illness, but apparently even that isn’t a good enough excuse for one Michigan school. In what can only be described as a dick move, a Catholic middle school in Detroit expelled a student for not fulfilling her academic duties while she was busy fighting acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
According to The Washington Times, officials at St. Joseph Middle School sent Barbara McGrath a letter stating that her 12-year-old daughter, Rose, could no longer attend after missing 102 days of school this academic term due to her illness.
Rose’s attendance, coupled with her academic performance, do not qualify her for continued attendance at St. Joseph Middle School,” the letter read.
The school also wrote that it has taken ”significant adjustments to our standards” to help Rose, including reducing her workload and paring down assignments and tests.
McGrath argues that the school barely made any adjustments at all to accommodate Rose’s treatment schedule and that her daughter was still required to do every assignment and every test within the same time frame as other students. She also said that, by her account, Rose completed the work and was on track to pass all of her classes, despite her absences.
The McGraths filed a complaint with the Federal Office of Civil Rights regarding Rose’s expulsion and put in a request to the private school district to adopt an official plan to accommodate sick students. Once the complaints were filed and the story went public, the weasels at St. Joseph apparently tried to reverse their decision. In an update to the story on Sunday, McGrath told AP her daughter had been invited back.
St. Joseph Middle School officials informed her that Rose McGrath could return to the Battle Creek school but postponed a meeting to discuss concerns until later this week to allow for ”a cooling off period.”
Rose is currently in remission, though still recovering from the physical effects of her treatments, and was devastated by the school’s initial decision. The seventh grader spent the past two years fighting for her life and all these school officials did was add more stress and turmoil to what was already a scary, awful situation. If anyone should’ve tried harder in this scenario, it’s the school.
McGrath said she’s not sure if Rose will ever go back to St. Joseph, and I don’t blame her for being cautious about putting her child back in that environment. Rose missed a significant amount of class time, but she was receiving treatment for leukemia. It’s not like she was playing hooky. The officials at this school are insane if they think it’s at all reasonable to accuse someone of being a bad student when they’re fighting for their life. Private schools are notorious for high standards, but that’s just callous and ridiculous.
(Photo: pyzata / Shutterstock)
