Seniors take advantage of new privileges
Seniors Reilly Rahill, Zach Carden, and Blake Mahmood take advantage of walking the halls with ID’s instead a hall pass
January 31, 2020
As the senior class embarks upon their last semester of high school, they’re rewarded with a few privileges: walking the halls without a hall pass, beginning/ending class when their first scheduled class begins/ends, skipping finals, and possibly spending free hour outside when the month of May begins.
After completing seven semesters of high school, the senior class feels as if they’re getting rewarded for finally making it. “For me, I like the respect to know that the teachers trust me enough to be able to walk around the halls,” senior Nick Peterson said.
However, there is a little more that goes behind these privileges than merely the respect that the seniors feel is given to them. Historically, it has been common for seniors to skip school during second semester because of the ever so ubiquitous ‘senior slide’. Also, the almost as popular ‘senior-skip-day’ ceases to exist at BSM due to the Skip-A-Final requirements. The guidelines for the Skip-A-Final, stating that there may be no more than four excused and no unexcused absences, are put in place to help attendance issues. “Basically those guidelines were developed before I came here, but it is just to promote that there is near-perfect attendance. We are putting these guidelines together for students to actually be in school,” assistant principal Ms. Dahlstrom said.
Beyond the Skip-A-Final privilege, walking the halls without a hall pass and going outside during free hours offers the seniors a larger sense of accountability. At college, students will not have to ask for hall passes during class; they’ll be completely responsible for whether or not they want to walk out of class. “Part of the seniors privileges is trying to ease the students into a little bit more of what college is like,” Dahlstrom said.
These privileges have been well received throughout the senior class. Some students, however, believe that the requirements for the Skip-A-Final might be tough to comply with. “I’m probably going to have to take finals because I’m going on a lot of volleyball trips,” senior Sarah Luong said.
Though students seem to be appreciative of all the privileges given to them, there was one privilege in particular that most students seemed to think was missing from the list. “I’d like to be able to leave during lunch or during my free hour,” senior Maria Rossman said.
Although these privileges have been granted already, these privileges may be rescinded at any time. “I’m expecting that the senior class treat these as privileges rather than just expectations because they are seniors,” Dahlstrom said.
