School Drops Unbelievable Bombshell on Girl, 12, Battling Cancer

Rose McGrath, 12, of Battle Creek. says attending St. Joseph’s Middle School has been the only thing that has made her feel normal during her two and one-half year battle against leukemia. (Screenshot via WWMT-TV)

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A 12-year-old Michigan girl had what seemed like a fail-safe reason for missing school – cancer – but was expelled anyway.

Rose McGrath, a middle school student at Battle Creek Area Catholic Schools, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in August 2012. She finished treatment in December and her illness is in remission, but she still has bouts of nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain that keep her out of classes at St. Joseph’s Middle School.

“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,” Rose’s mother, Barbara McGrath, told WWMT-TV.

Barbara McGrath said Rose was passing core classes, but her academic performance and poor attendance record were cited in the bombshell letter her parents received last week informing them Rose was being “dismissed” from the school.

“These were extraordinary circumstances, but so many accommodations were made we felt eventually it became a point where we really had to help Rose, by being able to make sure that she was getting the assistance that she needed and to learn,” the Rev John Fleckenstein, speaking on behalf of the school, told WWMT.

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The school said Rose had been in school only 32 full days out of 134 days since April 13, but her mother says that doesn’t include numerous partial days.

Rose is crushed.

Not only does she see her dismissal as unfair – “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she told the TV station – but going to school was one of the only things that made her feel like a normal kid.

“When I’m at home, I’m sick, I don’t feel well; no one else does that,” she said, her chin quivering and her eyes welling with tears. “But when I’m at school I’m like everyone else.”

“It’s not like she’s out at the mall having fun ...” her mother added. “She’s sick. she’d be at school if she could.”

Since news of Rose’s dismissal broke, the school has invited her back, but Barbara McGrath told the Associated Press her daughter will be attending public school for now and may not return. A meeting with Battle Creek Area Catholic Schools officials is scheduled for later this week.

In its letter, which Barbara McGrath provided to the news media, the school wrote that it has taken “significant adjustments to our standards” to help Rose, including reducing her workload and assignments, and allowing her to skip some tests.

“We know Rose to be an intelligent and thoughtful child, and believe she would be well-suited to enroll in an academic setting more geared to homebound students, perhaps an online program as we have discussed in the past,” the school wrote.

Barbara McGrath disputes that. She told the AP Rose “had to do every single project, every single test,” and, her mom believes, was on track to pass.

The accommodations the school made for Rose have been “woefully inadequate,” her dad, Tom McGrath, told WWMT.

They’ve asked the school to adopt accommodation plans for ill students similar to those required of public schools, and have also filed a complaint with the federal Office of Civil Rights.