Senior Ditch Day (also called Ditch Day, Skip Day, Cut Day or Senior Skip Day) is a tradition in some American schools where the majority of the senior class skips school. It is commonly held the Monday following Senior Prom or another large event. This year, the first senior ditch day at SLOHS was held on November 1st.
The reactions to this senior holiday, however, vary immensely from school to school. Some schools openly encourage the practice, helping the students pick a day to take off and advising teachers not to schedule quizzes or exams on the given skip day. Other schools, however, may severely punish students for willfully being absent from school to the extent of assigning detention, suspending students, or even going so far as to provide a failing grade or withdrawing a college recommendation.
At SLOHS, seniors who ‘ditch’ get cuts for all of the periods they are gone for.
“I don’t think schools should be allowed to punish seniors for taking the day off. Senior ditch days are a thing that we have been waiting for since freshman year, and therefore I think we should be able to comfortably chill on these days. It’s a tradition to ditch on ditch days and it’s exciting. Why should the school get to ruin that with punishments?” said senior Ella Livingston.
There is no generally agreed upon beginning to this unofficial tradition, but the practice has been in effect since at least the 1970s. The film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was a catalyst for several Senior Skip Days in the 1980s and mid-1990s.
However, there are some reasons out of the school’s control that keeps them from waiving the day on students records. All public school funding comes from the state, and each school gets a pension for each student. When a kid doesn’t show up, the school doesn’t get money for that student that day. So, to maximize profit, schools generally penalize the student for not being there, therefore encouraging better attendance.
“I don’t think students should be punished. Schools put too much on attendance and sometimes can overreact, which I suppose makes sense since they don’t get paid for every student that doesn’t show up. Unfortunately, that’s just the public school system,” said senior Carly Crow.
Source: The Washington Post
