On Monday, conveniently the Monday after prom, a large portion of the senior class will be participating in ‘senior skip day’. Senior skip day is not an authorized absence or marked in the school calendar.

According to Mrs.Nikolanci, who handles absences and recording them, this is one of her busiest days of the year. She said, “A lot of people call in that they’re sick.”

The senior class has about 380 people and about 200 are expected to participate in the skip day.

Mrs. Nikolanci also noted that, “Seniors who participate in athletics or other organizations through the school and participate in the senior skip day are not allowed to participate in those activities on Monday.”

This rule plays part of whether or not a senior will take part on the skip or not.

Seniors Max Deffenbaugh and Holden Lueck said that they have tennis practice and will go to school so that they can attend practice.

Deffenbaugh and Lueck are also persuaded to come to school because they hope that their classes will all be work days or free days because of the absence of the other seniors in the classes.

The baseball and softball seniors have no option but to come to school because they must be at their respective practices.

Senior Erica Evans said, “I probably won’t be coming. I think I may go to Champaign with some friends.”

The distance track coach, Megan Starkey said, “Monday is a normal day of practice.”

With the end of the year approaching assignments need to be done for seniors in order to not be taking finals. Some of the seniors see this as a day to work on those assignments while others see it as a day to use up for one of their six absences.  

When many teachers and staff at West were seniors, they didn’t get called out of school, they actually just skipped the school day. Now students call the attendance line to skip school.