Relaaaaaaaax.

Senior Ditch Day is coming up, and the faculty are tensely awaiting the event. Many teachers and admin gag at the idea of Senior Ditch Day. They say that it’s against school rules and even schedule tests on that day that are impossible to make up later to keep students in class.

But is it really that big a deal? Many students never ditch once before the fateful day, and even if they don’t deserve a day off with their friends, isn’t it a small enough issue to be tolerated?

I’m not advocating Ditch Day, or even saying it’s a good thing, but one ditched day isn’t going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Our school will always be one of excellence driven by sleep-deprived students running on pearl milk tea and sometimes Adderall. No bit of harmless fun will ever change that. Rules are bent all the time, and just because the seniors all ditch for one day doesn’t mean our school will fall into lawless chaos. We’d only be on our way there if students started a senior ditch week, or month, or even a year.

Senior Ditch Day is a rock in the shoes of admin and teachers, and, in normal cases, those should be removed, but if the rock keeps coming back again and again, like Senior Ditch Day inevitably will, isn’t it just better to just ignore it and move on?

And for students, Senior Ditch Day is anything but a rock in their shoes.  For them it’s a time to bond as a class and have a little unsanctioned fun. You can debate whether this is right of this until you’re blue in the face, but you have to admit, fighting to remove it would upset anger students, and it may even cause a backlash that wouldn’t be worth the result.

Really, those against Senior Ditch Day just need to lighten up and stop obsessing over control.  Many students take their education seriously, enough that missing even one test is a significant cause of stress.The staff shouldn’t take advantage of this to make students stay in school for only a day. Sure the “holiday” may not be the greatest thing in the world, but it sure as heck isn’t the worst thing. Not even close.