Can high school students afford to skip their senior year? That?s the question Utah Senator Chris Buttars is asking in his proposal to make the final year of high school optional potentially saving school systems an estimated $60 million. He claims that many students fall prey to ?senioritis? and don?t put the extra year to good use, so there would be no harm is simply missing senior year.
However, Buttars is making a sweeping generalization about the character of high school students. While I think senior year is nowhere near as taxing as junior year since many students are accepted to college by April at the latest, that doesn?t mean that the year isn?t valuable in other ways.
Quite simply, having another year of school before going off to college gives us the opportunity to juggle some of the pressures of college life, while still being in a relatively sheltered setting. Many of the classes that seniors take are college-level classes, such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or even Dual Enrollment classes. If kids were to have their third year be their final year of high school, they would not have the chance to take some of these advanced courses, and would have both the complexities of college curriculums and a huge amount of independence thrust on them at once, without any preparation.
Most importantly, senior year is one of the most important years in terms of developing maturity. Between trying to get into college and handling some of our new freedoms, the experience of senior year really helps us learn about who we are and how we handle pressure. Not only does it help us to gain a lot of confidence in who we are as people, but it also makes us more ready for the experience of living at a far-away college.
Buttars? position isn?t necessarily justifiable, but his ultimate goal is understandable. His state is facing a $700 million budget deficit, and he desperately needs to find some way to save money. However, I would challenge him to be more creative. Some school administrators have presented plans to ensure that seniors get more out of their final year rather than simply cutting it, and Buttars should follow their lead.
Regardless of what changes are made to the senior year of high school, the fact remains that if a student is going to slack off and be lazy, they?ll find a way to do it, no matter when their high school experience ends. However, we shouldn?t change the entire way the high school system is constructed just to save a buck and avoid some apathetic students; seniors need the extra year to grow and develop. The budget may benefit from removing senior year, but we certainly won?t.