Cancer patient dismissed from school for poor attendance

Rose McGrath, 12, says school was one of the things that made her feel normal as she battled leukaemia

A 12-year-old girl who has spent more than two years fighting leukaemia has been told she can no longer attend her school because of her poor academic and attendance record.

The decision by St Joseph Middle School, a private Catholic school in Battle Creek Michigan, stunned her family and left Rose McGrath confused and upset.

"I didn't do anything wrong, but they still got rid of me," she told her local TV channel, WWMT.

Rose has studied at the local Catholic schools all her life.

In 2012, she was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukaemia.

Her crippling treatment ended in December and she is now in remission.

School, she said, felt like a refuge from the sickness and treatment.

“When I'm at home, I'm sick, I don't feel well; no one else does that. But when I'm at school I'm like everyone else,” she said.

The school said it had taken the decision because Rose only attended 32 days out of this entire school year.

Last week it sent a letter to her parents.

“While we have made significant adjustments to our standards to help Rose her continued inability to meet our requirements have brought to light the fact that these adjustments are not enough to help her remain qualified to attend school,” it said.

It goes on to suggest she might be better suited to programmes that allowed her to study at home and concludes starkly: “Accordingly we are dismissing Rose from St Joseph Middle School in light of her inability to meet our academic and attendance standards.”

Her parents insisted Rose had kept up academically despite missing so much school and was on track to pass her core subjects.

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Barbara McGrath, her mother, said: "It's not like she's out at the mall having fun, she's in her bed, sick with nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain. She's not having fun, she's sick. She'd be at school if she could.”

Despite being in remission, she still faced a long road to good health, said her mother.

“Even though she's now done with her treatment you still have a very long recovery process because you've basically just put two and a half years of poison into your body,” added Mrs McGrath. “You're not recovering overnight.”

Father John Fleckenstein, of Battle Creek Area Catholic Schools, said the school stood by its decision but that he could not discuss the matter further for privacy reasons.