text: Sickness often leads students with two options: go to school and run the risk of infecting others, or staying at home while everyone else is learning, ultimately causing them to be left behind in school. Many students wake up sick but still choose to go to school because they are afraid of being left behind and have their grades suffer, especially in more advanced classes. Going to school puts the other students that they come into contact with at a risk of getting sick, and is the main reason how sickness spreads in schools. With the availability of distance learning, however, students who are sick would be more likely to stay at home instead of going to school and contaminating others. They could rest at home and wait out the sickness while not being stressed out about missing school and having to make up work for all of their classes. Online classes are a huge benefit that provides students who are sick with an opportunity to keep up with their school work while not putting others at risk.