Do schools provide suport or at least give students breaks when students have to deal with family issue?

Your question only shines a very bright light on why America is no longer the leader in the innovation of science, technology and economic growth. The minute we started handing out participation awards instead of first place trophies was the beginning of our downfall.

If a student has real family issues then it is undoubtedly affecting their ability to study. The situation in that question is an example of this. It’s not about letting the person off without good reason. To be allowed additional time the student will have to provide valid evidence that they’re under stress and they need support or extra time to complete their studies. It’s about being equitable and inclusive. Students have lives and sometimes things go wrong. Where possible educational institutions should try to work with students to negotiate those situations.

It’s quite possible the response might be that the student should withdraw from that course and come back when their situation improves. This is very likely if the request is one of several asking for help and additional time or if the student is under extreme stress. Any decision would also take into account the student’s participation up until the time of the request. If the student has demonstrated strong commitment to their work, and there are ways to give them more time, I would try to help that student complete the course. An important element in my decision-making would be whether the request was unfair to the other students. An extension under the circumstances described in the question you mention, wouldn’t disadvantage anyone else and is unlikely to give the student requesting the additional time an advantage. What I would be seeking to do is to balance the scales so she can finish her work, despite studying under difficult conditions.

I think it varies from school to school. In the case of illness or physical injury, most schools, as far as I know, require a doctor’s note for extended periods of absence. In the case of a death… it gets a little trickier. Most professors will probably be somewhat understanding, but ultimately, there isn’t much they can do if you miss a lot of school in that kind of situation. When my best friend committed suicide, I talked to my professors individually, and most were really kind and understanding and tried to give me the time I needed. However, I knew it was up to me to still, somehow, get done what was required of me. I couldn’t and ended up failing two classes (after getting “A” grades in every other class and being an honor student) and had to completely stop going to school for a while.

The question implies that education is nothing more than a politically influenced record of a student’s performance rather than a means of producing a reasoning mind.
As stated above, no wonder Americans are flunking out of the world.
Education is not a feel good experience.

@josie So what you’re saying is that no one deserves any time off for personal hardships or tragedies? That means people in the workforce shouldn’t be afforded the same consideration/right, either, which is ridiculous.

Don’t get me wrong – if people don’t make the grade, or can’t actually earn their degrees, they shouldn’t be able to get one. But implying that giving people time off for personal reasons is inexcusable isn’t very logical. People can’t power through everything and they shouldn’t even have to.

**sigh**
Gosh. Education sucks. Get the heck out of school! OMGosh! It is so very horrible, I am so glad that some have gotten through it alive! This will be THE most difficult thing you will EVER have to face in your life. We should all just get rid of those horrid bastions of education. Making up horrid guidelines to operate, and then not allow any humanity to show when needed. How awful! How unusual? Wait, what?
What are we going to do? Oh, yeah, let’s just leave them open for the thousands of individuals who leave their home countries to travel to the US to study and get various degrees and training in areas of study. Then they won’t have to go home and take the knowledge they gained where it will have the greatest effect. Just send all those nasty educational institutions elsewhere, like to Iceland, or perhaps Sweden- no wait- Canada! Then the Canadians can die from stress instead of us. When we go to our real-life jobs, everyone will treat us so much better.
I wish.
Boy did I screw that up!
Those lucky Canadians!

As far as our nationwide educational scoring compared to some other nations’ higher averages… How to explain….
Some countries are considered off the charts with their student’s scores when comparing their testing and educational scores to that of the students from the US.
Pppssssttttt- got a trick to tell you about how we can increase OUR student’s scores too!
Are you ready?
Make them study 24/7? Brain steroids? Hold classes and make their Mommies attend for the entire nine month gestation?
Euw. No.
Let’s take our students in and around the sixth grade level. Ascertain whether their grade scores are better suited for more educational instruction and if so- push them onwards and upwards. Those students who’s scores are not quite good enough to reach a high ‘set standard’, let’s vear them off and move them along a more-vocationally related study pathway.

Would you want your future decided at that age?
OK. So when the ‘best of the best’ scores are issued and compared to those from the US…who puts Everyone through 12 years of education (eventually to make their own choices concerning their futures.)
All scores. All students.
What the freakin’ hell are we thinking? ALL kids?
Not an elite group of excellent students?
You don’t get any scores from those kids put on the vocational track.
Funny, you never hear about them….

Thank you. I needed to let people realize just how gawd-awful education in the US really is!!!! Or how sub-parr our test scores fall. Stupid Americans, right?
No.

While I was in school I had an event happen that crippled me emotionally for a few months.

My dad told me more than once to withdraw out of classes for a term, but I felt unsure about doing it and the consequences, plus I didn’t want to extend my time at college. I regret not listening to him. That term destroyed my GPA and I missed an incredible opportunity from a professor, because I couldn’t pull it together when the opportunity was given to me. My dad has been a professor for 8 years when I was little. I should have trusted him more regarding the situation.

I refer to that incident as part of the proof that I am not lazy about “work” in that most of my adult I show up. I drag myself in even when exhausted or am emotional wreck. To my detriment in the end.

On the other Q where this was discussed I don’t think the OP will be given an extra month to do her classwork, but hopefully the school will not penalize her if she withdraws from the classes since she is already on probation.