A case study:
[A] student frantically emailed me the day before classes started to say he had gone to Israel over the break to visit family, but due to terrorist activity the airport was closed and his flight was cancelled (I checked online news, and this was true), he wasn’t sure when he would be able to get back to the US, and would I please give his email address to the class so that he could copy someone’s notes? Also, he knew the syllabus said I didn’t accept late work, so could he have the first couple of assignments now so that he could email them to me if he wasn’t able to be back by the due dates?
Yes, that is what the students should be doing. If they aren’t in class, they need to take care of it.
from PepperGal at the Chronicle’s fora, of course