Depleted classes!

I've had so many absences this semester. 

One week, early in the semester, both classes were depleted. I had 9 students (out of 20) one day. Finally students return and I try to catch them up. Then another different group of students is absent. 

This is bad enough in my regular semester-length (17 weeks) class, but with my late-start class (11 weeks), it's a disaster. Not sure if we're dealing with swine flu. At least one student emailed me to say she'd been diagnosed with H1N1. She missed both (late-start) sessions last week and will miss this Monday. She says she's trying to keep up by reading Blackboard. But in a class like this, which meets for 2 hours and 45 minutes twice a week, it's a bit like missing 2 weeks of school if you miss one week. I emailed her back and suggested she consider dropping and starting fresh next Spring. Not only will she have to catch up with missed work, she also will need to keep up. And even if she's permitted to come back to school, there's no guarantee health-wise she'll be back to full strength. 

Too hard.

I wonder how teachers around the the rest of the country are dealing with this year's flu season.