After a four-day weekend in early Novemember, students returned to a late start C day with 34-minute classes — most of them anyway. Opinions stirred on Nov. 4, when seniors were faced with the decision to either skip school and gather together with their peers or go to class like any other normal school day.
Senior John Randall felt strongly about his participation in senior skip day.
“You’ve been in high school for four years,” Randall said. “You deserve a day.”
With the three-day week and the late start C day, teachers were forced to adapt their lessons. This influenced some seniors to opt out of the chaotic day.
“We talked about it as a class, and we decided it was a good day to skip because there wouldn’t be a lot of makeup work to do with 34-minute classes,” Randall said. “It’s not like a block day where you could actually get behind.”
Due to the skip day occurring during tryout week for winter sports, student athletes were unable to skip class and still be eligible to participate in their sport.
“As seniors, we expect our girls to be role models for the rest of the team,” math teacher and girls JV basketball coach Heather Beal said. “You can’t be an example if you’re skipping class.”
Some teachers expressed their belief that students shouldn’t have chosen to extend the break. When seniors returned to class on Thursday, these teachers shared that they favored a skip day toward the end of the school year or perhaps no skip day at all.
“When some of my teachers were in high school, the tradition was to skip in May when you’re almost done,” senior and student-athlete Shannon Flynn said. “They thought that it was disrespectful to skip first semester, especially after having four days of break.”
Although most seniors wanted to skip and continue the tradition, others felt the need to attend class and considered the long term effect of skipping.
“It’s a great year to take advantage of AP classes and try to get some college credit,” senior Kara Stark said. “I want to make sure I’m here now so I can have a lighter workload later.”
