Since what seems like the beginning of time, each year the senior class has picked one day out of the whole year for everyone in the grade to skip. Typically the faculty and staff are included in the planning of this day or at least approve of it. This year though, things were a little different. 

After having six snow days, more snow days than we have had in years, the seniors decided to plan the senior skip day on a Monday after having a two day week the previous week due to the three days off because of snow. The administration was greatly opposed to this as many classes’ curriculums had already been pushed back due to the plethora of snow days. The fact that the seniors went through with the skip day aggravated many teachers.

Some were not necessarily outwardly angry about the students’ decision, but still decided to give extra homework on top of the class work the students had to do from what they had missed that day.

Ella Porter, a member of the 2025 class who participated in the senior skip day shares her frustration with the extra homework some teachers assigned:

“I understand assigning extra work but some teachers were a bit excessive in their assignments.”

The seniors had been attempting to find a date that let most people be able to skip school, and had landed on the date chosen due to it being in dead week for spring sports. The class had also planned this out just a few days before the snow days actually happened, and did not do it as a direct act of rebellion against the administration. 

Now I see the administration’s frustration in that it seems like the senior class as a whole went directly against the faculty’s wishes, knowing that they did not want the class to skip. 

This, though true for some, is not the case for the majority of the senior students. Unbeknownst to most of the students, STUCO had a meeting with the administration about the skip day, and as previously stated, they were told to not go through with it. This information was never put into any of the class’s group chats, so a lot of students did not know that the skip day was discouraged by faculty.

On the other hand, many teachers were also frustrated with the fact that although they had explicitly said in their classes that there would be repercussions if students skipped, the students who chose to skip still got angry about the extra homework assigned. 

Dan Burke, Westminster’s 11th and 12th grade principal, explains that: 

“We have allowed in students a growing sense of entitlement, that certain experiences are deserved even when they’re not. Appeals to students’ good nature dont work. So if that (assigning extra work) is where we have to go as a school, unfortunately that’s what will happen, but that’s not my preference.” 

The fact that wasn’t really taken into account by teachers who did this is that a good amount of students were not in class for these warnings that were given on the Friday before the skip, because that day was originally supposed to be a day off and many people, myself included, had already planned trips or had sports tournaments out of town. This left many feeling blindsided to the fact that they would be punished if they did not go to school.

From the faculty’s point of view, it was more than likely that the people in classes would pass on these threats to their friends and most people would know about the consequences of the skip day. They cannot let everyone who was not in school on Friday off the hook for the extra homework assigned because there is no real way to tell who really did not know and who knew and skipped anyways. 

Overall, despite the extra homework they were required to complete as a result of their skip day, most seniors have explained they didn’t regret skipping.