By Lucy Tamarkin
LREI seniors organized a “senior skip day” on March 1, and in response had to face the consequences presented to them the next morning. Because of the skip day the seniors’ privileges to leave the building during the school day were revoked for one week.
For as long as most can remember, the seniors always take a skip day, whether the faculty approves or not. Back when the school was made up of just 70 students in total, it was easier to deal with a skip day, says Vice Principal Sarvjit Moonga. “It started getting more strict as the school started growing,” he says. “So it wasn’t so much the change of principal as the growth of the school and systems [becoming] clearer.” Back then, the student body was so small that the punishment was left up to the individual teachers of the class the student missed. “There was no school-wide response,” Moonga said.
Although the consequences have not always been enforced by the administration to the entire senior grade, there has always been some kind of consequence for a senior skip day since the tradition was born. “I haven’t changed my tone that I gave to this year’s senior class for a long time,” Moonga said.
The LREI handbook states that “unexcused absences from school are considered ‘cutting school’ or truancy. If a student ‘cuts school’ he or she will lose all privileges for two weeks, must meet with the Vice Principal and their parents, and may be suspended and placed on Disciplinary Probation.”
The handbook makes clear that the school does not condone any kind of skip day, yet the seniors continue to organize one year after year.
While the school cannot stop the tradition, they can disassociate themselves from it. “When there is a party on the weekends, we don’t condone it, but it is not a school day. The school as an institution cannot say it [the skip day] is okay because if we just turn a blind eye to it, it’s almost like telling the kids it’s acceptable,” Moonga said.
Even to students, this makes sense. How could an institution enable students to do whatever they like during the school day? Taking this day off is not the end of the world, but it is against the school’s values to let it slide.
To many, the skip day may just seem like a way for students to miss class, but to seniors nearing the end of senior year it means more than that.
Senior Amalia Jaimes-Lukes explains the importance of senior skip day from a student’s perspective. “Towards the end of senior year you realize that a lot of these people you have spent the last four years with you might never see again. Skip day is a way to come together independently one last time before we all go our separate ways. It is a way to promote the unity of the grade and celebrate the end of the year, without the influence and control of the administration.” To the senior class, skip day is a tradition that holds more weight than simply missing a day of classes.
But not everyone agrees regarding what senior skip day is really about. LREI Principal Micah Dov Gottlieb believes senior skip day is simply an excuse for seniors to miss classes, and is actively trying to find alternative ways to give the seniors a day to celebrate with one another. “If you want to do some kind of senior experience, I’m all for that,” he says. “Throw confetti and sing a song. This is supposed to be a celebratory time, and to focus on that aspect of it instead of the other part which is we felt like the senior cut was just a way for seniors to miss school for a day when third trimester you basically have 6 weeks granted for senior project.”
He explains his process for going about this change. “Yeah, I would actively like to stop it. And if my plan to barter for it with another experience doesn’t work than I’ll do something else,” said Gottlieb. In order for this to be successful, Micah understands that there are aspects of this day that he needs to include in order for the seniors to be on board.
Earlier in the year Gottlieb offered the senior class a day of fun–laser tag or bowling or something similar–but there was confusion about when and how it would happen.
“At the beginning of the year he said we would have that school sanctioned skip day and that was the understanding,” senior Jaimes-Lukes says. “We thought we would have it in September, but then Micah kept on pushing it back. And the point was to do it maybe on a school day so we would be missing class, but Micah kept pushing it back further and further. He is the one who schedules it and pays for it so our class reps had no control over that, until he ultimately said it was going to happen in the 3rd trimester.”
The plan fell through and the plan for an alternative day ultimately failed.
“I offered this day to this year’s student reps and it didn’t work out,” Gottlieb said. “Probably mutually at fault. Not like they said ‘screw you we’re not doing this,’ and not like I was like ‘well I’m not gonna make this happen.’ I offered it. I think there was some confusion about how it was. Then they brought it back up again a couple weeks ago to try and do it now and I said now is not a good time. It’s the end of the trimester. So I said why don’t I send you somewhere when you come back from spring break and they opted to do something different.”
Many seniors are left wondering why it is so important for Gottlieb to put a stop to this tradition. He explained the damage missing a day in the last trimester can cause to some students.
“What we really want to avoid is an experience like this causing a small segment of the students for their grades to drop or a question of whether they are able to get credit for classes and stuff like that,” he said.
Despite the failure of this year’s alternative skip day, Gottlieb remains determined to change the senior skip day tradition.
“I’m not a quitter, so I’m not going to stop trying to change the culture. But changing culture takes time and flexibility and I’m just going to be patient,” he said.