When taking PE, I’m about positive that most people will pass the class as long as they try. It’s an easy class as long as we participate – that’s the main thing teachers care about. But there is a way a student can fail the class even if they put as much effort into each unit and run as possible.

I can give my all in an attempt to make it to school on time, or I can do my best to feel better from illness, but if I am absent I lose 30 points for each run day, which is a big part of my grade in the class. Now, anyone can do makeups to help improve their grade and get points for what they missed, but in this, case running five laps will only grant a maximum of 15 points.

Since a run day is worth 30 points, and a makeup 15, someone would have to run twice as much as the actual run they missed, over the course of two days. But why should I have to run twice as many times as someone who was here the day of the run just to score the same score as that person?

Despite the terrible flu going around, which left many students on excused absences far too sick to run, to avoid a drop in our grade, we need a doctor’s note. Attaining such a note is time consuming, especially when only dealing with a passing flu. While I do not need to go to the doctor for something I will recover from in a short period of time, if I do not attain a note, then I still must make up the run to obtain my points.

As someone who has had multiple absences this year, the experience of running every roar period for a week does not seem pleasing to me one bit. And while having a doctor’s note for an injury can excuse us from running, what about the people that were previously sick to the point to where they couldn’t move or do much of anything? Why should they attempt an exhausting run right as they overcome their illness?

This system can be made fair by changing the existing process, either by preventing excused absences from counting against someone’s grade or adding more points for making them up, so it won’t be so overwhelming for students to regain points after an illness.