The flu season is in full swing and students and teachers alike are piling up the absences because of illness. With school back in session from winter break, many students and instructors are slowly getting back into their daily routines. However, some people have fallen victim to the cold and flu since the new semester has began.

“We ran a report that runs the percentages [of student absences]” attendance officer Margaret Harper said. “We have had a lot of kids out with this flu and it’s not just like a day here or there, it’s multiple days.” Administrative assistant Donna Murdock tracks teacher absences.

Having 300 students out at one time would appear to be rather large, but with the school’s current capacity, these numbers do not drastically affect the attendance average. “When you miss school, its pretty hard to catch up… because you have to catch up the work you missed and the work your going to get for the next day”, says junior Irvin Maldono. “To many days to count”, says Maldono when asked how may days he has missed this year. When teachers miss ‘to many days to count’ many students take affect because of it.

“I think this year, we’ve been very fortunate to not have many teacher’s absent,” She said. According to the statistics Murdock and Harper provided by, as of Jan. 26, the teacher to student ratio is 149:1348. Perry has an average of nine percent of students out on any given day, which rounds out to an estimated 300 students gone on a given day. “Perry has 148 teachers on staff here,” Murdock said. Having 10% of teachers gone equals about 14 teachers absent. With the average amount of students in a class being around 30, roughly 290 students would have substitute teachers who could possibly not understand the lesson plans left by the educators. This can result in students being less prepared for their next learning day.