It is that time of the year again. The time for Halloween, Thanksgiving, the winter holidays and of course, senior skip days.

It should not be any surprise to administrators or teachers that seniors do not want to attend school every day because of the stressors of high school and preparing for college. However, administrators are under the pressure of keeping school scores up. Their wanting of seniors to attend school is understandable. To respond to this pressure, administrators have chosen to hand out punishments such as Saturday detention.

There needs to be a new common ground for seniors and administrators. There must be a way in which seniors can take some time off from school and administrators can be content with the learning progress.

A new system must be in place for administrators and seniors to deal with senior skip days. Instead of punishing seniors by giving them unnecessary punishments such as Saturday detention, let’s use a different method. Veterans Day is coming up, and with it comes Touching Bases. Instead of making seniors go along with the rest of the school and show up for three pointless hours of day, give the seniors the day off. With this day off,  seniors will feel more pressured to go to school the rest of the week and year.

This concept can be applied to other days throughout the year. The day before Thanksgiving for instance, which is another relatively pointless day in terms of academic rigor. Giving senior this day off of school would allow a break as well as motivate them to come in the future.

Ultimately, senior skip days need to me managed in a way which both administrators and seniors cooperate to achieve the common needs of both.