<p>I know that I can be old fashioned and persnickety, but I’m a little curious, bothered, something about this.</p>
<p>My son is in 8th grade and his class is planning (unofficially) to have a “senior cut day” tomorrow where no one comes to school. I can kinds/sorta see it in that today is the senior trip and it was a very long day. HOWEVER, tomorrow is the experiment part of the state science exam for 1/3 of the class. My son already took his test, but 2/3 of the seniors have not. Which means that the 1/3 of the class supposed to take it tomorrow will have to move it back to the middle of next week-ish and the grading process will be delayed. I don’t think an 8th grader needs a cut day, but I’m not really opposed to it on its own, but I think the state exams should be taken seriously. I don’t like the parental attitude that “the school can arrange a make-up” and it’s too bad.</p>
<p>Agree: state tests should be taken seriously and should not be missed. A skip day can be any day, why make it on a test day? Of course, I’m not sure why the school scheduled a long trip the day before the state tests, but you can’t change that. (Our school tends to schedule trips like this on Fridays.) School doesn’t get out next week, so it’s not like this is their last chance to cut.</p>
<p>I’m totally up in the air and, to be honest, I’m being a little bit of a busy body. PBK has already taken his part of the test, so he wouldn’t be blowing it off. On the one hand, he has had an amazing semester and shown leaps of maturity in the last few months, has excellent attendance and grades, and will probably come home tired today. However, 8th grade isn’t 12th grade and this whole cut day thing is getting on my nerves. Particularly in the context of the school having a prom in a catering hall at $45 per ticket.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my very dear friend, whose son is in the grade and who is running roughshod on the wrong path these days, is scheduled for the test tomorrow and won’t be going to school because she doesn’t want to fight with him. If, in fact, most of those kids don’t come to school tomorrow, it will affect concert rehearsals, library periods, technology exams and other things because of the space issue.</p>
<p>Clearly I’m a witch, but we already knew that.</p>
<p>I don’t think you’re being too strict. I have an 8th grader, too, and he has friends in several different schools, and I have never heard of 8th grade cut days or proms. I agree with suzy that these things are for HS seniors. I haven’t heard of 8th graders being called “seniors,” either.</p>
<p>Do you know whose idea this was, and who is organizing it? Did it happen last year?</p>
<p>I don’t know who is organizing the cut day, although the prom is an official school event. I didn’t think to find out whether it was done last year because I was (and am) so taken aback by this.</p>
<p>My son’s 8th grade class did have an “Eighth Grade Dinner Dance”. We were told it was NOT prom. They also had a NOT GRADUATION ceremony called “Soaring Ahead” officially, or StepUps if you were a cynical parent.</p>
<p>Thank goodness they didn’t have a skip day. I would not have gone along with it. </p>
<p>FWIW we pulled S2 from the school due to a variety of things, but StepUps was part of why I was totally fed up with them. That and the philosophy of “failing math” with a grade of 82.</p>
<p>My daughters were forbidden from taking part in any of the various “skipping school” traditions at our public HS. They might have explained it away to their friends by saying it was because I was, at the time, a member of the BOE. But we wouldn’t have permitted it anyway and I actually think my daughters were fine with it because they said they had more fun in class with the other non-skippers than they would have with those who cut class.</p>
<p>For me, I wasn’t cooperative with senior cut day. So cut day for eighth graders would never fly in our house. When my kids were high school seniors I left it up to them about cut day with the understanding that the required written excuse from a parent for a missed day would not be a lie. Since athletes cannot compete on a day they were not present in school, two of my kiddos attended school on skip day. The other two chose to skip and I wrote on their excuses that they took mental health days. The school secretary just laughed and recorded the absences as unexcused. Of course, any graded work that day was given a zero. What really irks me is parents who write excuses for skip day that indicate the student was sick. And no, it is not that the students write the excuses themselves. Parents have told me
that they didn’t want little Johnny to take a hit on his grades. What a standard to set for future members of the work force. I just think with senior trips and senior picnics etc students really don’t need a blow off day.</p>
They are planning to sleep in, which I can understand since they will come back late tonight. You make an excellent point about the fact that he told me. He is a totally imperfect child, but unlike my friend’s son, I am not in a position of having to let him stay home because I am afraid of his temper.</p>
I wouldn’t go along with that. Not a chance. The only concern I have here is whether the teachers will be in school tomorrow. He went in once on a snowy day (we live in walking distance) and was one of only a few kids present with almost no teachers. Total waste of a day. Of course, there’s no way of finding that out.</p>
<p>My D1 took a senior cut day because she had perfect or almost perfect attendance every year of school, so it was no biggie. D2’s school did it during IB tests, so she was in school.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of an 8th grade “ditch day” either. I wasn’t thrilled with the HS senior one, but I let it go and didn’t write and excuse. I don’t think I’d allow it either. It’s 8th grade!
We also called the dance at the end of the year, Graduation Dance- not Prom. A lot of kids just wore the clothes they walked across the stage in. Bringing some of these rites of passage down to the lower grades certainly takes the novelty out of it for the older kids.<br>
I think I’d be on the phone to some of the parents and get enough of a group to attend that the kids going to school wouldn’t feel they were the only ones. It’s times like this that being active in the PTA or other parent group comes in handy. Call the principal and see if school is in session.</p>
<p>Is this the child who is going to atttend a private school next year? At my S’s private this would have triggered some level of disciplinary action by the school.</p>
<p>Just like you posted, this isn’t a big WRONG, but isn’t a great idea.</p>
<p>When my kids were in public in middle school, parents were expected to pay the district the ADA if their kids had an unexcused absence. That’s a great reason to give your kid for not letting them cut. " If you want to pay the $70 (or whatever) a day yourself to take the day off, well, go for it."</p>
You got it, this is the kid who is going to private school next year. I’m confident that it wouldn’t happen in that school because they don’t tolerate nonsense.</p>