Viruses hitting SCHS Hard

Kids getting sick and having to miss out school

As it gets colder, more and more kids are starting to get sick each day and are having to miss out on a bunch of school. This leads to them having homework piling up and a bunch of stress. 

Junior Amy Gutierrez was one of the victims that were stuck being sick. As she was going about her day, she started to feel down. Thinking it was nothing she continued about her day, but it started to get worse.

“My head started to burn and I couldn’t keep my eyes open,” Gutierrez said.

She stayed home from school the next day to rest and hopefully feel better by the next day. Unfortunately, she stayed home again and this kept repeating. She eventually figured out what was wrong. She had the common flu, which led to her missing about a week of school and she missed cheer practice and a ton of homework while she was out. 

Senior Oliva Fogarty was also another person that was feeling ill for a long period. It started with one of her friends being sick and then she ended up getting sick as well. She felt terrible while being sick.

The type of sickness she had was Influenza A which was the flu. She was out for a total of nine days of school. One day she would feel a tad bit better, then would feel bad the next couple of days. 

“I missed a lot of school and all the fun activities I had planned,” Fogarty said.

Sarah Schiffer, the attendance secretary, takes care of all the kids who are late or ones who leave and come in. She gets insight into who won’t be at school and why they won’t be there. She felt very sad that the kids were missing school and that it was stressing them out. 

Lucky for her she hasn’t been affected by the horrific sicknesses. But she doesn’t like seeing the people she cares about going down with the sickness that is being passed around.

“In the past month, we have had an average of 45 kiddos out sick each day,” Schiffer said.

The school nurse Casie McKinney is in charge of helping the students when they come into her office. McKinney stated that being sick is a yearly thing and that they saw a lot more kids being sick and having it around school. 

“People weren’t wearing masks and isolation like they were during COVID,” McKinney said.