By Hasan Mirasyedi, Staff Writer
Senior year is a year filled with excitement and anticipation for the next chapter in life. With being a senior comes many perks. More freedom, prom,and graduation, as well as a more controversial one, senior skip days. Senior skip days, or ditch days, are days when the majority of seniors skip a specific day of school. Senior skip days are usually held on days after big events like prom, sporting events, or school events. Traditionally students would gather at another location for the day. However, now senior skip days are days where seniors can work on college applications or just relax and do whatever they neede to do.
Sounds like a great time for seniors. A little bit of harmless fun skipping one day of school, but is it fair for the students in younger grades? Sophomore Karina Lynn doesn’t think it is, saying “Senior skip days are dumb. While seniors are sleeping in, I still have to get up early and go to school.” Karina also added how it could disrupt certain classes by saying, “mixed grade classes might not have enough students to complete activities the teacher might have planned. That could ruin the teachers’ day.”
Math teacher Mrs. Walker disagrees, saying, “I love it, I’m all for it. Only if the student is responsible for making up for their missed work, and if they don’t then that’s on them.” And when asked if it ever interferes with her plans for the day she replied with “No, if I hear about it ahead of time I’ll just modify my lessons to make sure we don’t learn anything new and make it a review day.”
Most seniors seem to agree with Mrs. Walker and enjoy spending their time off. Senior Henry Zatkowski said, “many students have already applied or been accepted into colleges so skipping a day or too won’t affect them too much.” Senior Andrew Rodgers argued that senior skip days are fair and that “they are a well-earned break for the seniors as [they] deserve it. Plus everyone eventually becomes a senior, so they’ll have their share of senior skip days as well.”
Senior Hao Bei Balentine is also a firm believer in senior skip days. He mentioned how “seniors use these skip days as a way to de-stress and catch up on the college application process.” Whether it be applying to colleges, scholarships, or more, Hao Bei believes that “senior skip days really help [seniors] prepare to make the next big steps in life.”
In the waning months of their academic careers, seniors de-stress and relax on skip days. However, they are responsible for their actions and must complete any school work they miss, or face the consequences of getting a failed grade. After all, the absences are not excused and it could affect their chances of graduation.