A well-known tradition among senior students is senior ditch day. This student-organized day is when seniors skip school collectively.
On Sept. 27, around 200 students were gone. Poway High gets an estimated $70 per student each day they attend, for at least three-quarters of the day.
Two hundred absences equates to a $14,000 loss. Not only does this event affect Poway High financially, but the attendance office gets hundreds of calls trying to excuse seniors, putting an overwhelming amount of work on staff.
“It increases the number of phone calls that go through our attendance office tremendously, which impacts the amount of resources we have to do the other things we are supposed to do during the school day because we have to receive those calls and put them into the system before the school day ends,” Principal Richard Nash said.
Seniors who participate in senior ditch day were not marked as excused. This means many lost credit for assignments that were due that day. Many teachers require an excused absence to make up missed work.
“I think it’s fun to have a tradition. That particular tradition has a cause and effect that isn’t positive,” digital media teacher, Robert Kaechele said. “What a senior doesn’t recognize if it’s a mixed class of different grade students in a project-based class, some of the students will be relying on students to be there and when there’s an abundance of them missing the project lags and causes problems. I think there are other ways to celebrate being a senior than ditching school,” he added.
Many seniors say this day is a bonding experience and something fun to commemorate their last year of high school. Nash expresses how his senior experiences were.
“As a senior four times in my life, I would tell you the experiences I’ve had that were the most meaningful were not the ones I wasn’t at school; they were the ones I was connected to at school. For example, our student section at football and basketball games. When I’m in that group, I feel like I’m part of the school in that moment,” Nash said.
Nash believes seniors who wish to go to senior activities and choose to miss school for senior ditch day will not “sit well with him” when going to senior activities put on by Poway High. Nash hopes to work with ASB to continue to find fun connecting activities for seniors to participate in.