Senior skip day: in theory, this day seems great. You get to skip school, sleep in and hang out with your friends while the rest of your non-senior peers are forced to attend class.
However, the sad reality is that skip day isn’t so great. After this past senior skip day, which took place on Nov. 1 to celebrate the first deadline for college applications passing, I have come to the conclusion that senior skip day is not really worth all the trouble.
The first problem with senior skip day is that it is an unofficial event planned by the senior class, meaning it’s an unexcused absence. Now one unexcused absence may not sound like a big deal, especially if you are a senior, but that absence can bring about some problems. According to the school disciplinary rule book, “unlawful absences will be considered disciplinary infractions” and so some teachers won’t accept work from the day you missed if it was unexcused. That means you risk getting zeros on homework assignments or even a quiz or test, which means a serious drop in your grade.
The second problem is that skip day interferes with teachers’ class plans. Teachers have planned out intricate lesson plans weeks in advance but seniors disrupt that planning by picking which date they want to hold senior skip day a few days before holding it.
This last skip day fell on the same day as an anatomy practical, programming test and AP chemistry quiz. Now teachers have to deal with a number of students who missed these big assignments. They are required to sacrifice their lunch time or stay back after school to offer the students who skipped a chance to make up the missed work. Therefore it’s understandable when teachers get annoyed over skip day, since it’s not really fair to them. Is ditching one day really worth messing up your relationship with your teacher?
After partaking in ditch day myself, I can say it’s not as a great as I thought it would be. The whole day I was more worried about how my teachers were going to react and how much work I was missing instead of enjoying my day off. And when I did return to school the next day, I was welcomed with heaps of homework and class work I needed to make up.
As first semester slowly creeps to an end, another ditch day may be proposed by the beginning of second semester, but is missing one day of school worth an immense amount of make-up work, teacher’s frustration and an unexcused absence? I didn’t think so.
Maria Hafeez
Editor-in-Chief
