“Senior Skip Day” is a day during which seniors at our school (or any school) commit mass truancy. It is a long-held and hallowed tradition here at IHS. Seniors take this day so seriously that I remember some of my AP classes last year being nearly empty.
Naturally, this sort of “sticking-it-to-the-man” mentality would be something I could get behind; however I find that in many regards, the tradition lends too much legitimacy to the anti-skipping attitudes of the administrators, and should thus be abandoned. By orchestrating a collective act of defiance, students send the message that they are doing something that is in some way wrong. Taking a day off should be perfectly acceptable for students in good academic standing, be they seniors, juniors, sophomores, or—and I shudder to say it—even freshmen.
Before delving into the arguments for relaxed truancy rules, I think it’s important to see why these rules exist in the first place. According to Strategies For Youth, a government-sponsored website aimed at strengthening and improving the relationship between police and youth nationwide, truancy laws are designed to ensure that students with learning disabilities, family issues, and fear of bullies don’t flunk out of school simply because attendance is difficult. The key is to note the demographic the law has in mind: people who are struggling in school and at risk of failing.
With this in mind, I propose the following: students should be allowed to skip any classes in which they have a 90 or higher. Teachers don’t need to accommodate skipping, and students would be responsible for getting homework assignments in on time and turning in tests and quizzes. For example, it would be okay for a student to skip a day in AP Chemistry if they just want to take notes online and aren’t worried it will lead to a drop in grades. This of course means that no administrative time will be spent trying to catch kids in the act (e.g. waiting outside of the parking lot, hiding out at Slope Day, going to Papa John’s on Tuesdays to punish students without senior privileges). All such efforts would be—and honestly, should be by now—entirely digital, with SchoolTool attendance features being used as a cheap and effective alternative.
The biggest benefit this system would lend to the school is the incentive system it creates. Students would work harder in classes they don’t like or are struggling in so they can get the grades they need to be able to skip. It also forces people to only skip when they know it won’t adversely affect their class grade.
For students, not having to sit through boring and useless lectures would be a plus. Honestly, there is no reason anyone should have to listen to a 45-minute lecture on stoichiometry if they don’t feel they need to. I’m confident that every single student at IHS can think of a class they took where they would have received a totally fine grade without showing up half the time.
Most importantly, such a policy would reduce the obsession and culture that revolves around skipping. The most infuriating embodiment of anti-skipping attitudes can be found in our school’s library. Showing up just a minute after the bell rings usually means lines out the door, which is not only boring but cuts into the already limited free time students at IHS crave. Worse, signing in is an unnecessary pain, with administrators requiring that schedules be shown in needlessly specific ways; SchoolTool, for instance, is not accepted when shown from a phone, but is from a Chromebook. This makes no sense and even librarians I’ve talked to admit the rule is pointless. The best solution so far involves students carrying their student ID cards (which not many students do), and going to their APs to get stickers showing their free periods (which is a pain, and, once again, no one really wants to do it). While some students opt for this, many don’t. I personally want to spend as little time near my AP as possible.
All of this prompts me to ask a simple question: why are we doing this? It certainly isn’t to actually prevent skipping. During a student council meeting, I asked administrators why they couldn’t just check attendance records taken by teachers that already detect skipping. They explained that it was simply an idiosyncrasy. In other words, administrators are so worried about students skipping and going to an alternate place of learning that they need not just one, but multiple systems in place to make sure those delinquent kids don’t go to the library. This is infuriating to me. Due to a fear of truancy, admins are creating a system where it would be easier for students to skip school and smoke pot under the bridge than to go to a library, where their whereabouts can be monitored and they can learn from a plethora of books and academic resources.
In addition, this superfluous security ends up inconveniencing the vast majority of students trying to use the library legitimately. I see no reason why students should not be allowed to simply sign in with their name (for use in the event of an emergency, such as a fire), without any need for ID, pass, schedule, chromebook, or a long wait. The majority of students should not have to suffer because administrators feel a need to punish a minority of skippers, especially when the suffering comes due to a redundancy.
It is important to note that allowing students to skip does not have any effect on the demographics that truancy laws are actually concerned about; the whole point of the law is to protect those at risk of failure. By limiting the scope of truancy to only those we are actually worried about, more time and effort can be spent pursuing students that legitimately need help without harassing students who aren’t doing anything wrong.
Obviously, not all skipping is good. Don’t skip in a way that jeopardizes your grades or hurts a teacher’s ability to teach. If the entire class agrees to skip on one day, that can hurt a teacher’s ability to teach effectively and throw off their schedules. With this in mind, I encourage students to skip, but skip responsibly.