Sitting in class, it’s hard to ignore the chorus of coughs, nose-blows and sneezes. As the semester has drawn on, the number of absences and sick students on campus has only continued to climb.
According to attendance records, in the last month, each day around 35-40 parents have called to say their child won’t be able to attend school. At a school as small as PHS, these absences have been hard to ignore.
“I think [attendance] will get better in a month or so,” Attendance Secretary Latanya Lloyd said. “Once we get through October and the weather adjusts to a normal situation then it will improve.”
The main illnesses that have been making their way through campus are pneumonia and COVID.
“There have been a lot of kids coming to school, then leaving in the middle of school with a fever,” Lloyd said. “I have a couple of kids out with COVID that have left in the middle of the day.”
PUSD District Nurse Carol Menz said that recently cases of COVID have increased among Piedmont students and faculty.
“Schools are still required to track COVID,” Menz said. “COVID peaked in the middle of summer and at the start of school, and it is still elevated but it has been on the decline since August.”
However, Menz said that as the year goes on, regulations around COVID are changing.
“Schools are expecting by February that we will no longer need to track COVID,” Menz said.
Recent information suggests that there have been a few pneumonia cases, but PHS nurses don’t have the statistics to say exactly how many.
“A parent might let us know if a student is sick, or they might come into the wellness center if they’re not feeling well,” Menz said. “Most of the time we won’t know if someone has pneumonia because the family won’t report it.”
Illnesses are affecting students’ workload and grade performance, which can be difficult for freshmen who are new to highschool.
“I had pneumonia for the first two weeks of school, and it set me back so I did not know how some of the classes worked,” freshman Eli Dao-Hoang said. “In the first week of school I missed a math test, and my grade was a ten percent in math for a while.”
In addition to the academic struggles that sickness brings, there is also a toll on the physical health of students.
“I lost ten pounds due to the inability of not being able to do anything like eat or work out,” Dao-Hoang said. “I play soccer and I am currently in season for AFC, so it will definitely be difficult for me to come back from the physical aspect of things.”
With the workload that comes with junior and senior year, many upperclassmen are reluctant to miss more than a few days of school.
“I had pneumonia and a sinus infection for three weeks, but I only missed two days of school,” senior Sophie Santander said.
Even though Santander only missed two days of school, she still had a lot of work to make up.
“I had a lot to catch up on, even though I just missed two days of school. I think freshman and sophomore year it was a lot easier to miss school,” Santander said. “The workload that I’ve had as an upperclassman has been definitely a lot heavier than it was when I was an underclassman.”
Students aren’t the only ones affected by these illnesses, teachers and faculty are also impacted.
“There have been a few teachers out sick, mainly only on Mondays we have had more teacher absences, but we have had some instances where teachers have been out for a week,” Principal David Yoshihara said.
Teachers being out sick takes a toll on students’ learning.
“I think for students a sub is not going to be their primary teacher,” said Yoshihara. “Their instruction may be more limited, they are probably not learning more content, most subs aren’t going to come in and teach the content, so more independent learning, which has an impact on students.”
