<p>How does your school, you, your kids handle senior skip day?
Ours had a fit. Teachers gave zeros for the day to kids who were not there, gave kids who were there A’s, and then gave kids who were gone really difficult make up work/tests.<br>
I told my son he could go or not go. He decided to go late, because his earlier classes didn’t have anything going on in them that day (they have online syllabus). Next thing you know, all this broo-ha-ha.</p>
<p>lol american high schools are so strict!!</p>
<p>uhhh at my international school we all skipped one day and they said “we respect that a ‘skip day’ may be tradition in many of your cultures, so we cannot condemn it. we do ask that you approach your teachers and ask for any make up work. and it would have been better if you’d notified teachers before, so that they didn’t waste their time making lesson plans!”</p>
<p>haha i guess high school is one aspect of the american education system i’m glad i missed out on. 
i don’t understand how having those ridiculous punishments can be productive for anyone.</p>
<p>Last year my D was one of the Sr. Class Officers, who plan Sr. Skip Day. It’s officially sanctioned, and months in advance the admin, faculty, and members of the Sr. class know when it is. The secret is the rest of the students in other grades don’t know it’s Sr. Skip Day (SSD) until they get to school and see a “message” from the Seniors – something like a huge banner in the student lounge. The admin know what activities are planned, but since it’s not an “official” school event, Sr. parents have to sign a special permission slip which is supposed to absolve the school if anything awful happens. (It never has.) The whole thing can be described as “if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em.” </p>
<p>FYI, this is a small, private girls school.</p>
<p>I don’t really remember my older Ds private school having that-
then again, she only had 18 in her class- so it would have been pretty noticeable.</p>
<p>Her sisters school, I believe would give zeros.
I know they do so, when students skip school to go on marches or when they leave before an assembly.
( they even gave D a zero when I had taken her out of school for an Dr appt before an assembly and it wasn’t worth going back to school, even though she had a note)</p>
<p>I don’t agree with missing school to go on a march- especially when I have the impression that many are more interested in teh missing school part than the issue. ;)</p>
<p>However- for better or worse- I think senior skip day is a tradition HOWEVER- I would like to see kids take the day off and do something fun but innocent, not a liquor party like when I was in high school, but an amusement park.</p>
<p>In our district, end of year things are so frequent, but they are planned- kids in the grade school or even middle school went to Wild waves &/or movies
Senior skip day wouldn’t even be that special :(</p>
<p>My D skipped Senior Skip Day! She had a test that day, and the teacher told them anyone who showed up that day got to take the test as a group, so she went to school and got a 100 on the test.</p>
<p>Actually, it’s a tradition at her school and a few others in the area to have Senior Skip Day as the first day of baseball season. I refused to do this, but the parents call the kids out sick. This year, many of the kids went to the Phillies Game, and a few got busted for underage drinking at the the stadium :(.</p>
<p>Really! At our school Senior Cut Day is quite routine. Out of 400 seniors, not even 10% go to school. It is the Monday after prom, and most kids have gone away for the weekend. Even kids who have no social plans just stay home. Parents don’t even call the attendance officer to excuse their kid on that day.</p>
<p>D decided to go in late (and talked me into agreeing). Teacher was OK with it (she has over 100% avg. in the class right now), but attendance czar had a fit–I had to call (this is after sending in a note) to get them to excuse her for the class she missed. OK, so I did lie and say she wasn’t feeling well, but still!</p>
<p>I’m sure it becomes a problem as the year goes on, esp for seniors, but as an involved parent, it gets to be interesting… Yesterday, D had an interview w/ a panel of judges w/ the local newspaper for a scholarship. She was named “senior of the year” for her high school, and GC and principal recommended her for the scholarship. So, she had to go to be interviewed to see if she’s one of the winners city-wide. I should also note that she had emailed the people, asking if she could get an interview time later in the day so she didn’t have to miss school. They changed it from an 11:00 interview to the latest they offered–1:30. I sent a note with her to school to excuse her early (missing last class of the day). I got a call from the attendance office to verify that it was indeed, me, who had signed the note. Yep. I picked her up at school, and she showed me the note she’d gotten from the attendance Nazi…unexcused absence. Good grief. I called the woman when I got home–it’s the principle of the matter–and she said that unless the principal OK’ed it, it was an unexcused absence. It really doesn’t remotely matter if it’s excused or not at this point, but by then I was on a mission. I sent a very pleasant note to the principal, asking that since D was on an interview that the SCHOOL nominated her for, that maybe an excused absence was in order? Today, the attendance-lady-on-a-power-trip called me to tell me that the principal had OK’ed the absence and she had changed it on HER “system”. She was as pleasant as could be…it was all I could do not to be way snarky. Yes, this is the val of the class–what a bad-ass. I’m sure they want to be consistent in their “rules”, but isn’t a bit of common sense helpful sometimes?</p>
<p>My kid’s school (an all boys, Jesuit HS) quietly accepts Senior Cigar Smoking Day. Seriously. </p>
<p>It precedes the No-Girls-Allowed-Sausage-Cookout where they eat undercooked miscellaneous sausage stuff that the boys pick up at the grocery store next door. (As if girls would want to go. Dreamers.)</p>
<p>That is what happens when you let men run a school. :D</p>
<p>In my kids high school, senior skip day was handled like any other absence. If parents called their child in “sick” they had an excused absence (I would never do this for them). If child was absent, they had the same length of time to make up work they would have for any absence–day per day.</p>
<p>Most kids in the more difficult classes never skipped. Also our school system has this policy that if a child misses 2 days or less in a class they do not have to take final exams (unless state mandated tests). This encourages attendance in a great majority of kids. Often by senior skip day, students don’t have a free absence to give.</p>
<p>*quietly accepts Senior Cigar Smoking Day. Seriously. *</p>
<p>EEWW
makes me want to spit :p</p>
<p>( combined with the sausage thing- it sounds like there is some phallic symbolism going on)</p>
<p>^ “( combined with the sausage thing- it sounds like there is some phallic symbolism going on)”</p>
<p>Gee, ya think???</p>
<p>I assume the annual belching and farting contests fit in there somewhere too, huh?</p>
<p>astrophysicsmom,
I’d bet the attendance Nazi lady has kids, right? And her kids didn’t get nominated for senior of the year, right?</p>
<p>The Principal at my son’s school decided to crack down on the planned senior skip day last year. She threatened to cut back on our school districts generous “educational trip” excused allowances. She explained that because the district allows all families to take their kids out of schools without a penalty we may have an artificial amount of absences. If the majority of the seniors skipped it would have a real negative effect on the yearly absence count and something to do with the NCLB rule on absences allowed per school or district. My son and some of his friends compromised by leaving the school grounds for lunch and a study hall right after lunch. Slightly daring but worst case scenario would be a detention.</p>
<p>Senior skip day is alive and well at our local high school and took place last Friday (4-20 - certain seniors thought it was oh so clever). My child did not participate as no school attendance, no athletic competition (though apparently a couple of kids somehow managed to pull it off, don’t know how). There were multiple games Friday. Plus the mother in this house frowns on such things, especially considering the amount of school missed already for college visits, school trips, music events, athletic events…oh, yeah, and every once in a while a kid even gets sick!</p>
<p>Teachers are a mixed bag in tolerating it or not, so lots of factors come in to play. Come to think of it, parents are a mixed bag in tolerance as well. The whole concept makes me a tad bit nervous. On the other hand, if I had a kid with a stellar record, minimal absences and a safe, sane plan for the day…who knows. Fortunately (?!!) that has yet to happen in this house.</p>
<p>In our school district funding is based on the number of student/days attended, so absence = lost money. Last year the school came up with all kinds of draconian penalties for missing classes scheduled for the previously disclosed “SSD” - mandatory tests, etc. The seniors just quietly arranged a different day. Some took both days off.</p>
<p>D’s boarding sch plans a senior trip to a park. The kids complain that it’s lame, and parents of day students often write notes for excused absences.</p>
<p>Yep, we had senior Ditch Day. One year this involved transforming the school courtyard into a beach.</p>
<p>There was always a senior prank, too. When I was a sophomore, we came to school in the morning and there were no chairs anywhere in the building. I still don’t know where they hid them all. It was rather fun having class on the floor.</p>
<p>No senior skip day and after senior prank got out of hand a couple of years ago, it was also banned with huge consequences for those who decided to try it anyway.</p>
<p>I teach mostly seniors and love senior skip day (a non-sanctioned event). For those who come to class, I give an unannounced minor extra credit quiz or activity (on class material) that is practically impossible to screw up. I really don’t believe in punishing the kids who decide to follow a tradition they have longed after during the prior 3 years, I just reward the ones who come. The school has consequences for unexcused absences and some teachers do give major tests that day. The only thing that irks me are the parents who write notes saying my S/D was “ill”, thereby excusing the absence and making them eligible to complete all missed work/tests. When my own daughter was weighing her options to skip or not, I told her that I supported her decision either way, but would not protect her from the consequences. She had to figure out how important it was to her to skip.</p>