A Theory

Bianca is in both my first and second periods. On block schedule, that means I start the day with her every school day.

Bianca is in ELD, which means she's not a fluent English speaker. She speaks it well enough to get by, but she's not quite there academically.

Bianca has also been out of class. A lot. 

She asks to use the restroom, and then she's gone a while. She returns to say she was in the health office. She was throwing up.

She's frequently been late. She's been absent. And she's not doing much work. 

She complains of being tired all the time.

On Thursday morning, she approached me before class. She said she might need to leave class quickly if she felt like she needed to throw up. 

And suddenly I had a realization.

I asked Bianca if she needed to go to the health office first. She said she was okay. Later that period she gave me the heads up that she needed to go. A while later, another student alerted me that Bianca had gone to the health office. (Bianca texted her.) 

Bianca's mother has been in contact asking about Bianca's work. Now that I have a theory, I kind of want to give Bianca's mother a heads up without saying it outright. But other things have taken up my time and energy, so I haven't had that follow up yet. 

Bianca is a freshman--fourteen years old. I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong.