<p>Oh I totally get/understand that girls take the day of prom off - it’s that she took the day “4 days before the prom” off - to get ready for prom!!!</p>
<p>The tanning salon by us is open from 8am-11pm so she should have been able to do that outside of school hours & well, shoes, purse & alterations can be done then too. maybe just a mental health day? Who knows at this point? </p>
<p>I cannot comment on anyone’s senioritis. My personal senioritis started halfway during junior year. During my senior year, you were allowed up to 10 absences per marking period before there was an issue. I was absent 39 days that year 
During commencement my 1st period teacher came up to me and told me I should have been an administrative failure. I responded “but I’m not ;)” I believe they changed that rule the following school year. </p>
<p>I also went to my GC on my 18th birthday to see if the 2 colleges I was accepted to would take a GED diploma. Being a 1st year GC she told me yes and I then said I wanted to withdraw from school (unbeknownst to my parents.) Well, the GC freaked & I didn’t drop out, but I just remember thinking that it was all such BS at that point. And a few more months of BS can seem intolerable when you’re 17 & 18. </p>
<p>I’ve managed to still be a productive member of society with advanced degrees even after that so I think all our kiddos will end up being OK in the long run.</p>
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<p>That’s what happens when you devise a rule that’s supposed to be enforceable without any thought or even a spark of intelligence. It would take a human of reasonable intelligence to say whether or not a certain outfit was “indecent” or not (or even explain what that meant), but you could probably train a chimpanzee to enforce the “fingertip” rule by shrieking and flinging poop if the budget was really tight.</p>
<p>"shrieking and flinging poop if the budget was really tight. "</p>
<p>Gardna, I didn’t know you worked at my company :D</p>
<p>To what degree the dress code gets enforced is also directly correlated to how overweight and unattractive the hall monitor is. Jealousy, you know.</p>
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I’d prefer to think of it as karma. I guess perspective is everything. ;)</p>
<p>It may seem stupid, but some rules have reasons. One good way to evaluate a rule is to consider what would happen if everyone violated it. </p>
<p>In general, I agree that dress codes can be arbitrary. </p>
<p>But what if everyone, or a large portion of a class, chose to miss multiple school days in senior year? First, I feel this is disruptive. In addition, public schools in my state are paid by student attendance. If a student wishes to reimburse the school, that’s okay. But I am certain there are many that don’t.</p>
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<p>Not just arbitrary, but they are written in such a way that, if interpreted literally, would tie a teacher’s hands in cases where some students can get away with something that another student couldn’t based on something as absurd as the length of their arms and their fingertips. </p>
<p>I don’t have any special objection to dress codes, but the broad guidelines should be promulgated and administrators should be able to use their best judgment to see whether or not ambiguous cases were violations or not. It reminds me of those cases where a little kids get slammed with some insanely harsh punishment for innocuous violations of poorly-written zero tolerance mandates. In cases like those, there was probably no need for an 8-year old to get sent to reform school or get arrested by the police but teachers and administrators lose the authority to take effective disciplinary action to maintain order.</p>
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<p>How many kids actually even know that? I think if there was a fee for skipping class then attendance would probably improve, but I don’t think that there should be a fee. :D</p>
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Boys aren’t allowed to have facial hair?! I’m glad our school doesn’t have rules like that.</p>
<p>Ugh, finally I can rant about this…here is a students perspective</p>
<p>“senior year is easy” is such a lie. Its honestly been one of my hardest in terms of workload. Between the ridiculous amount of homework we’ve been getting assigned and my declining effort, I’ve failed more assignments/tests in the past two weeks than I have in all four years combined…ugh. </p>
<p>Its not that classes are getting harder, though, its all busy work. Why on earth are teachers assigning projects and presentations the week before AP exams when the material wont even be covered on the exam??? Sorry, but I’m not going to put hours and hours into pointless busywork - I need to study for my exams! We could do something infinitely more useful in class, like, you know, reviewing? I wish we could get reading weeks like colleges give - heck, even just a day without homework would be nice!</p>
<p>And all this hasn’t been helped by the 7 or 8 days I’ve missed for college visits…</p>
<p>I wish my school would adopt policies that other schools have, like not requiring finals for students with As both quarters: perfect solution to senioritis (I might actually try harder if that were the case!)</p>
<p>As for the monday after prom…our school is so strict about it. But I can’t miss it anyways, because I have the AP Government exam that day.</p>
<p>You get a detention for missing Monday even if your parents call you out - but thats alright, no one really cares. Usually there is a pre-Saturday detention tailgate in the parking lot, they have a “theme” and even people who don’t have detentions show up trying to get in! haha…</p>
<p>starbright said:</p>
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<p>I personally know of two kids (through their parents) who were rescinded. One had a full athletic scholarship who was rescinded after his (I believe) first semester senior grades came out. Nothing his father could say could convince him that the school might rescind his scholarship. He ended up taking a gap year and going to another school where he did not receive an athletic scholarship.</p>
<p>Number Two was a very bright kid who got into our state’s tech university, and once accepted decided that he did not have to put up with the “busy work” that teachers sometimes assign. As a result he got two Ds (at least) second semester senior year and his acceptance was rescinded. He was allowed to attend another school and apply for readmission the following year. So he attended a community college and got to live at home for an extra year.</p>
<p>All of this in the span of two years to children of parents in my relatively small circle of friends. I suspect that GCs know of many more.</p>
<p>It’s hard to convince a hard-working kid that he shouldn’t cut school one special day in June when he’s already taken all his AP exams and course finals (AP classes give them in April), or is exempt from finals because he’s a senior with a A grade. All they’re doing then is busywork. If the school doesn’t want seniors to skip classes in June, then they need to re-structure their academic calendar.</p>
<p>Senioritis hit me and my classmates pretty hard for most of April. I know there was this one week were at least half of my classmates skipped school to finish an essay the next day (okay more like 25%). We’re all sleep deprived and sick of school.</p>
<p>But we see the light. AP tests are coming up, which means AP classes are slowing down and switching from instruction to review. I know in Chemistry and Statistics especially, the workload is really easing up. This week has been significantly less stressful than the ones before. We have to hold on for 2 more weeks after this, but we see graduation on the horizon, finally.</p>
<p>My son is suffering from a major case of senioritis right now. He has been in the top ten percent of his class all the way through and often took pride in his class standing, but he doesnt seem to care anymore about that anymore. He is still doing well in some classes (including an AP literature class, of all subjects), but he seems to have totally thrown in the towel on two of his college-level courses and is apparently satisfied with just getting these classes over with and taking the low grades that will no doubt result. It has gotten really bad in his social studies course he slacked off in a group project and ended up getting into an argument with some other students and now nobody wants to work with him. My wife and I have tried to help him but he repeatedly tells us only what we he thinks we want to hear and it seems we only find out the disappointing truth when the report card comes or we contact his teacher. This is compounded by the fact that his teachers believe that these students should be treated as adults and forced to deal with the consequences of their actions, so there have been no calls or e-mails to us parents to try and proactively deal with these situations. </p>
<p>In retrospect, I wish I had seen some of the warning signs and that he had never taken such a challenging course load for this year. This is the first year he has worked a part-time job, and he has also remained active in the schools music program which often involves afternoon and evening time commitments. A heavy course load was never a problem in the past, though, and he always rose to the challenges he set for himself. My son has also grown from being a shy kid just a few years ago to being a more socially comfortable young man with numerous friends, and he gets frustrated at times that all he wants to do is have some down time to go out or even just to chat on Facebook. I dont have a problem with this and we are actually very proud to see how he has blossomed, but Im trying to get him to understand that he needs to find a balance and that its not acceptable in college or the professional world to just do what you want to and blow off duties that are difficult or otherwise perceived as unworthy of your limited time. </p>
<p>The worst part of this situation is that it has put a major damper on what should be such a joyful time for all of us. I want to be excited for his future in college, but Im filled with dread that these poor habits will carry over and he will get into trouble next year (and with my wife and I even more in the dark than we are now). I hope and pray that my fears are overblown and that he will be excited and challenged by college life and will respond with the type of strong effort that he has shown in the past.</p>
<p>I had serious junioritis but I rocked senior year. College has been a long, extended bout of senioritis. My senior year our AP Euro teacher held all the seniors back after class and basically offered full credit if we did our damn homework (the seniors in the class basically stopped doing hw on time).</p>
<p>After reading through this thread, I have a greater appreciation for my son’s IB magnet. Maybe the teachers treat them better because there are so few taking the IB exams but they seem to work with the students as long as the students don’t take advantage of the situation. During the exam weeks, the exam takers have study sessions during the day for upcoming tests and are allowed, if the parents ok it, to go home after an exam period. The students appreciate the efforts of the teachers and my S just told me today that his friends have decided to pass on physics day at the local amusement park in order to review for the history exam with a favorite former history teacher. On the other hand, it is going to be VERY hard to keep motivated for the final weeks of school. The teachers that I have talked with seem to understand that and are planning some interesting things to do for those final weeks.</p>
<p>His school HAS exams? My high school graduated us before finals week, so we didn’t have any spring trimester.</p>
<p>Well, my S’s school decided to be nasty about kids being tardy. They have really lowered the boom -and the kids have responded by a massive tardy day today. So sad to see. The students DO need to be on time and respectful – but a militant clamp down brings out the worst in May seniors. </p>
<p>I think it’s going to be a long six weeks.</p>
<p>In our house, I think it is a case of parentitis. My son’s first semester grades were his best ever, he was accepted to his first choice college, third quarter grades were great and now I wish he could just go hiking or fishing or play golf with me. He is going OOS to college and I think I am missing him already.</p>
<p>JayDee12, you son sounds like mine was years 1-3. He finally got it out of his system for senior year. Of course, this curtailed his admissions prospects, but I think he’s through it. Made for a terrible few years for us as parents, very frustrating.</p>
<p>S’s high school is pretty easy on the seniors. He’s just finished up a couple of projects, and is pretty much home free. He got top grades so is excused from taking the finals. I think this is a great motivator. In order to get out of finals, you need the grades plus a minimal amount of absences. Previous years he would try to get out of school at least one day a week. This year he went no matter what, and even balked at me taking him out for excused absences.</p>