Seniors Skip Day Should Remain a Tradition

In comparison to other years, Seniors Skip Day 2018 was handled in a melodramatic way. Seniors skip day has been a has been a culture for many years wherein seniors take a time off after numerous bimesters of diligent work and dealing with the process of college applications. This year most of the students took profit of this day by working on the ISP, yet clearly, administrators didn’t take this into consideration and they decided to enforce harsh consequences in comparison to past years.

Over time, part of the fervor of being a senior involves taking a day off or doing a “senior skip day”. Unfortunately, this year directives are taking away part of the senior experience by canceling traditional senior activities despite the fact that they are nicely aware of the small time remaining to do group events before graduating and going separate ways. “A major consequence of the seniors skip day was the cancellation of the senior tradition of walking around the school at the end of the year,” Mariana Correa, 12th grader stated. The last day “caminata” is the best opportunity for a last bonding senior activity, it’s the best chance to say goodbye to the classmates and to the school, but this year’s goodbye is not going to be buried properly… with one last goodbye. “I don’t think the consequences are fair… we studied at the school and it was our second home for 14 years and now we can’t say goodbye to it just because we missed one day of school,” 12th grader Valentina Agudelo expressed.

NHS members were additionally tormented by the consequences of the seniors skip day. Considering the fact that they were already dealing with an unexcused absence and the removal of the “caminata”, they had had an additional consequence compared to other students. “If NHS member didn’t show up to sign assistance, they would be kicked out of the NHS society meaning they would not be able to graduate with the NHS diploma,” Correa said. It appears to be unjustifiable that after numerous bimesters of diligent work and keeping a GPA over 85%, the school was going to such an extreme consequence regarding NHS for only a day of excused absence by parents, which many students used for STUDYING. When it comes each child’s duty, guardians ought to be the ones to settle on the choice in regards to their education, if they want to allow their kids to miss a day of school, the school shouldn’t stand in the way of it.

Compared to past years, the directives went too far with the consequences for the seniors 2018. This year seniors got a wide range of disciplinary consequences, while past years did even more than 1 seniors skip day and they received minor consequences. “We had 3 seniors skip days, one the day after we arrived from San Andres, the second one was the day before the last day of school, not everyone missed this day but a big part of the year did to go on a trip. Lastly, we did another skip day to work on the ISP…at the end all the consequences we had were an unexcused absence and a big sermon,” Alejandro Ochoa, senior of 2016 stated. Clearly, this year the consequences are bigger and the action was less serious compared to seniors 2016. This clearly shows the unfairness when it comes to enforcing punishments.

Senior skip day has always been, and should remain a tradition; a rite of passage for seniors who are trying to make their last experiences in high school memorable. As any other act of disrespect to school, the seniors skip day should come with a consequence, however not the extent that the school is taking it this year. The only consequence that the senior skip day should come with is an unjustified/unexcused absence.  “The seniors skip day is something everyone should live on their senior year… is a day that eventually is going to happen and at that point of the year directives should accept that it isn’t that big of a deal.” Sebastian Arteaga 12th grader expressed.