This year has been a weird school year. A lot of changes had to be made to our school in order for us to be able to physically go into school while maintaining social distancing and being safe during the covid pandemic. One of the main things our school has focused on was trying to make it so not too many students were in the school, so they split us up. That split up also awarded the seniors with the rights to leave. I feel like this year has been such an interesting and stressful year that it’s worth trying new things.  

Our high school has come to an agreement that seniors should be allowed to leave during the free period. I am a fan of this because I do think seniors should be able to leave; 99% of us have our license and it’s our last year. We should be able to have some freedom and take on more responsibility.  This gives us a small view on what college is going to look like. Some colleges allow you to go off campus to get whatever you need and have some freedom. With that freedom will come with responsibility and it shows us that we need to work for these privileges and as long as we are being responsible we are getting to keep these things. Thanks to IHS, they make sure every senior student that chooses to sign up for this privilege has passing grades and are being responsible when using this privilege and don’t have too many unexcused absences. 

I asked one of my closest friends how he felt about this privilege. I asked him how often he leaves during the support block. “I use it when I have the free time. If I have a lot of homework then I stay and make sure the work is done first.” That shows that students are making sure they have their school work done before they leave campus. I also asked him what he does when he leaves campus. “Most of the time I’ll walk to Dunks to get something there or walk to Shaws and pick up something for lunch.” For students to be allowed to go somewhere to get food is a big win. Some students might not like the food that the school provides and they can get what they like. 

This also gives students who have a car able to go out further to get something. The students who have their license have more options such as going home to make their own food or going out to pick up their food. 

I was talking to one of my former teachers about this and I asked him how he felt about it. “I think it’s a good thing because it gives the seniors a big responsibility to take care of and making sure they have their grades up and aren’t slacking off.” Hearing a teachers view on this whole new thing shows that teachers are also making sure that students aren’t slacking off. I also asked him how he would feel if this privilege continued on for the future. “I think it will be one of those situations where the school will have to talk about.” I can see why he said that because next year is going to be totally different then this year. Next year everyone will be in school and who knows how long the free period will be next year. Hopefully it does continue next year, but we’ll see. 

I think that senior privilege is a great idea to keep around because I feel that seniors should get a sense of leaving campus and having that responsibility because it will give them an idea of what college is like. As long as students are keeping their grades up and returning to school back on time and being responsible with this then it shouldn’t be a problem and can keep going into the future.