Spring is arguably the busiest time of the school year for students. Sports, music competitions, drama productions, robotics, and AP exams collide in a supernova of stress and anxiety for many students, especially for those involved in multiple extracurricular activities and a heavy course load.
In the height of this swirling chaos, seniors are filling out scholarship applications, making college decisions, and focusing on finishing the year strong. Enter “Senior Skip Day.”
Every year, towards the middle of the spring season, an anonymous planner creates an Instagram account and organizes a day for their fellow seniors to skip school. This year, students took a trip to the beach; although not all participating seniors ventured to Oregon’s coastline, many spent the day catching up on school work and other errands.
Senior Lily Scanlan participated in Senior Skip Day and opted to spend the day at home, completing some work that she was behind on. “I had some appointments… I just stayed at home, and it gave me a chance to catch up on missing school work… but otherwise, I would’ve gone [to the coast].”
Many seniors, like Scanlan, spent the day being productive at home. However, a sizable share of the senior class enjoyed a day at the coast, and it doesn’t sit well with the staff at Wilsonville High School.
Band and orchestra director Chad Davies has been a vocal opponent of Senior Skip Day, which often falls in the heat of music competition season and has detrimental effects on the ensemble. Even in a purely academic setting, teachers quickly criticize the culture around Senior Skip Day.
Economics teacher Jeff Deeder fired his shot at the culture around skipping, pointedly saying that “students should be in school, and I am not a … fan of Senior Skip Day.”
As a veteran teacher of over 20 years, Deeder’s opposition to Senior Skip Day didn’t come from a vacuum. He communicated that “[Senior Skip Day] slows the learning process down… In general, not coming to school is not good for being successful in the classroom.”
Deeder reasoned that one day of skipping “probably isn’t the end of the world,” but affirmed that the culture around skipping shouldn’t be encouraged. If schools want to push students to academic excellence, the notion of a collective day to simply slack off contradicts school values of discipline and hard work.
High school seniors work hard between tough classes, extracurriculars, and post-high school planning. However, a coordinated day of skipping school goes against the spirit of academics; both teachers and students should find a middle ground between a rest day and maintaining integrity throughout the school year.