I’m not disabled, but I had some chronic health problems through my youth (was born in 1982). I’d be out of school for maybe a month at a time, every other month. My teachers would generally send the work home when I was ill and my mother, a former teacher herself, would go through the textbook and assignments with me. I’d send my homework in every week and take the standard exams and generally do very well (I’m smart and with private tutoring, well, hey!). When I returned to class, I was generally caught-up.
Every once in a while, though, we’d get a recalcitrant teacher who would question why I was even enrolled in public schooling, claim that I couldn’t learn the curriculum if I wasn’t in class, didn’t want the hassle of sending my assignments home, refuse to let me come in and take an exam a few days late, etc. My mother relied upon the ADA to insist upon reasonable accommodations for me when I was sick. Without it, I would have flunked countless exams that I wasn’t in class for simply because, well, “it’s not fair to the other students that she get any extra time”. Pfffah. They can take my 4.0 high school GPA and shove it.
Big flashbulb moment for me when I became old enough to realize that, hey, the ADA is for temporarily disabled people, too! As if anyone who becomes sick or injured should just be SOL.