Siddharth Deshpande
Reporter
As school moves into its second month, students get accustomed to the persistent rhythm of courses, homework and extracurricular activities. Though students are expected to be present in class, New Canaan High School’s Attendance Guidelines expect absences to be caused by personal illness, death in the family, court appearance, religious holiday, college visits, or emergency medical appointments may be excused. The problem, however, arises when students take advantage of attendance policy, and skip class for other reasons.
Skipping class does not appear to be a rising trend. “The trend has remained very consistent,” Assistant Principal Ari Rothman said, “On any given day, only about 8-10% of students are absent. Maybe a quarter of these are unexcused absences.”
Despite this, Junior Tom* feels differently. “A lot of people skip class and just don’t get caught, and it’s just that the teachers and Administration don’t find out.” he said.
Students skip class for a variety of different reasons. Junior John* believes that “A lot of people skip to complete work for class.”
Tom agrees. “If it is necessary to skip a class for a project or something, then it should be ok. However, if you skip in order to do work, you can become reliant on skipping and can fail to develop time management skills outside of class” he added.
Senior Rick* disagrees with the reason. “If you skip class to do work for another class, you only make your situation worse. It would be better if you were just honest and told the teacher.” He said.
With the ideas of skipping ingrained into high school culture, certain stereotypes arise. Senior Mary* said “I feel like guys are more likely to skip classes than girls, and this trend is even more accurate when you look at tougher classes.”
However, Senior Amanda* disagrees with this stereotype. “I don’t think that this stereotype is true. If you take harder classes, you tend not to skip class whether or not you are a boy or a girl.”
Regardless of their gender, disciplinary action is taken when an individual is caught skipping class. This often takes the form of “garbage duty” during lunch, or another form of detention.
Looking at the trend, however, it seems that the punishment is usually effective. According to Mr. Rothman, “if you catch someone skipping class and let them know, it usually does not happen again.”
Despite efforts to curb skipping, some students however do not believe that “garbage duty” is an effective punishment. “Not only does Garbage duty have little effect as a punishment, it can have a negative impact on the student as he is usually made fun of.” Rick said.
As skipping has been going on for a while, students have methods used to skip and avoid getting caught. “They don’t really check, so I just forged a note. I signed my own signature and I wasn’t caught” said Senior Bob*.
The overall concept of skipping is hard to contain. “The issue is difficult to address head on, partially due to the fact that there are only two people in the attendance office who have to oversee around 1300 kids.” Mr. Rothman said. “The attendance office saves every note that they receive from students and check them if review is required.”
Other students attempt to evade punishment by asking their parents to fake “sick notes” for them. “Parents who fake notes are only giving their kids an easy way out.” John said.
Mr. Rothman agrees with this view. “The school is dependent on parents to be honest. A parent is not helping us by encouraging the issue” he said.
Even though skipping class may provide the instant reward of a newfound free period, skipping class can have a negative impact on student’s relationships with teachers. Mary said “It depends on the teacher, but overall, I think that teachers stop giving repeat offenders the benefit of the doubt.”
Rick agrees with this statement. He added, “Skipping class is like bad karma. It will come back to hit you later.”
When it comes down to it, however, students generally agree that skipping class has very few benefits. “Skipping isn’t worth it in the long run. You have to go through all the hassle and the fear of getting caught. It’s only worth it on the day you skip” said Bob.
Tom clinched this view, stating that “Skipping class is like a substance addiction. It can give you a thrill in the moment, but is really not worth it in the long run.”
*Names have been changed
