Having students in school as much as possible is important, but sometimes kids get seriously sick, so teachers need to take that into account.

What would you do if your daughter missed two months of school due to illness, but one of her teachers refused to send her the work that needed to be done, so when she returned to class, she had a very bad grade?

That is what happened to the student in this story, and the teacher won’t even explain what she should have done differently. So, Mom wants to reach out to the principal, but is worried that this would be overstepping.

While I understand not wanting to be an overbearing parent, this is one of those times where it is completely appropriate to contact the principal. Read through the full story below and see if you agree.

WIBTAH if I contacted my daughter’s school to ask they give her an extension?

My (f36) daughter (f9) is a straight-A student. She’s well-behaved and has never caused any problems at school.

She has had a rough couple of months.

For the past two months, she’s been absent from class. She had the flu, then terrible tonsillitis, then an equally bad ear infection, then covid.

She’s been to the ER four times, two of those resulted in her staying in the hospital.

Teachers should be happy to work with students in this situation.

During her absence, I emailed her teachers weekly and they all sent me the material she missed out on. All of them, except her History teacher.

I tried calling her work number several times, she did not answer. I ended up contacting my daughter’s homeroom teacher, who assured me that the history teacher will contact me. She did not.

Her return to school did not go smoothly.

I would like to point out that the school specifically asked parents to do this if a child is absent. My daughter ended up getting notes from her classmates.

Friday was my daughter’s first day back in school and she had history on her timetable. She called her dad during recess, crying.

Some kids really hate it when they get a bad grade. Especially when it is not fair.

Her history teacher gave her a 5 (on a scale from 5-1, where 5 is a fail) because she failed to turn in her worksheets. She’s never gotten a poor grade before, so it affected her a lot.

My problem with this is that she was never told that there’s a graded assignment in this class at all and she never received any worksheets. Our online parent-school portal, which we can use to check my daughter’s exam dates, also didn’t have a graded assignment input in history class.

The problem is clearly just this one teacher.

Her classmates didn’t mention it to her either. Last week, I had a meeting with her homeroom teacher, in which we discussed how she will attain the missing grades, and it wasn’t mentioned.

Other than this, there was zero issues – all the other teachers are extremely kind and willing to help.

If the teacher doesn’t reply, this needs to be escalated to the principal.

She told her dad and I that she asked the teacher to give her an extension, but the teacher refused, saying rules are the same for everyone and that she’s making no exceptions.

I emailed her, politely asking for a parent-teacher meeting, and she hasn’t replied – and I strongly doubt she will.

Contacting the principal is exactly what should happen.

WIBTA if I contacted the principal about this? Her dad and I don’t mind her getting a bad grade, but we do feel that it’s unfair she’s being punished when her teacher is the one who failed to communicate with us.

I don’t want to be a “helicopter mom”, but I see how hard she works and how much she cares about her grades and I know for a fact that she’d fill out the worksheets had she known they exist.

This is extremely reasonable.

At the very least, I’d like to ask her history teacher what she’d like us to do if she ever gets sick for a long time again in the future, so this does not happen again, but I just can’t get into contact with her and I feel that just showing up at the school is inappropriate.

– Signed, a frustrated mom who’d appreciate some advice.

Escalating the issue to the principal is exactly what she should do here. There is no reason that the daughter should suffer because of one teacher’s neglect.

Check out what the people in the comments have to say about this situation.

If the teacher is ignoring her requests, what else can she do?

This commenter went through something similar.

Here is someone who thinks she has a healthy approach in this case.

If a teacher isn’t responding, parents are left with no other choice.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who offered to buy his parents a house with his lottery winnings, only to find out they think they deserve half of all his winnings.

This commenter thinks going to the principal is the best next step.

There is no reason for a teacher to completely ignore a parent’s requests. It would be one thing if the teacher replied with an answer they didn’t like, but to completely ignore the mother’s messages is unacceptable.

At this point, she is left with no choice but to reach out to the principal to get what they need.