If there’s one thing Bellarmine’s notorious for, it’s for students who are so dedicated to their educations, so passionate about every single moment of class, so committed to their futures, that they would rather come to school sick than miss one minute of a lecture. Now of course this may seem like an amazing reputation to have, that is until one of those deeply passionate students are in one or all of your classes.

I’ve come to call them “the sickness spreaders.” They can easily be identified; sneezing, constant runs to the nearest tissue box and the crafty cough strategically planned for whenever the silence breaks in the classroom. Normally these individuals would be avoided at all costs, or at least questioned as to why they’re at school and not at home resting in bed. But now it seems that it’s almost an unwritten rule that unless you’re absolutely dying and are unable to move your hands and legs to come to school and write, then there’s no excuse to be absent. “If people can stick it out and not get others sick then I think they should go to school because school’s just too hard to miss,” said freshman Chris Harrison. And the opinions spectrum differed. Some students were on the side of not coming to school at all while others believed it was better to come to school than miss a day. Junior Molly Payne commented, “I think it’s better to come to school because I can’t miss a lot of classes. I know if I missed AP Chem I’d be dead. But if you’re really sick and close to death than stay home.”

And if you’re like me, you may find these people who come to school sick a bit of a nuisance, but the irony of it all is that at some point we all once did the same thing. As we’ve all been subjected to the rigors of Bellarmine and the constant need to stay on top of both our homework and extracurriculars, there’s sometimes been a need to sacrifice sick days to come to school instead. Maybe in the back of our minds we flashback to the time we actually took a sick day and then upon returning noticed the tremendous amount of homework overload and vital information we had missed and from then on vowed never to do it again. Either way, there’s a clear message: it’s better to come to school sick than miss a day of classes.

Maybe Bellarmine is setting us up for good work ethics in the future, but with all these sick kids coming to school, you’ve got to wonder how the greater population is being affected. The trend of one person getting sick and then like a domino effect, more and more fall victim to the same illness is definitely prevalent. “Sometimes teachers blame it on the students for getting themselves sick and not doing their homework which isn’t fair,” said freshman Rashanae Petty. Though the student body seemed to be divided between either staying home or just coming to school to avoid being behind afterwards, there was a clear pattern. Bellarmine definitely influences an environment in which students are encouraged to attend school every single day. Though we’re on a block schedule, missing a single day of classes can seem fatal to some students. And maybe in such an environment, we are bonded by the fact that we’re so dedicated and so close that we’re willing to all catch the same colds and tolerate those who come to school sick because we all understand the drive associated with the school system that is Bellarmine.