Seniors skip Senior Week with no regrets
Instead of playing games and watching movies, seniors snoozed away and spent time on their own. As the first year without Senior Week during California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) tests, seniors came to school after testing sessions ended for each day of April 17-22.
According to senior class president Sugal Sutter, the Davis High School administration tried to figure out whether or not having Senior Week would be worthwhile for both students and staff at the beginning of the school year. “They wanted my opinion, so I told them that I, like many other seniors, believe that it’s a complete waste of time,” Sutter said.
Sutter claims that many seniors each year ditched Senior Week for a reason. From Sutter’s perspective, not having a Senior Week has been incredibly beneficial and more productive. “Plus, by not having a Senior Week, the seniors in Student Government and I can focus on more important events coming up during this part of the year; such as Senior Ball and Graduation,” Sutter said.
Sutter says he was thrilled when the board announced that there would not be a Senior Week. “It means I have less work on my shoulders, and I’m even happier as a senior to […] be able to get a good amount of sleep that was needed instead,” Sutter said. Sutter remains high hopes that the administration will apply the same rule for the following years.
Senior Dani Grant prefers not having to come to class at all but she claims it was nice being able to get up at a later hour than regularly. “I didn’t have to wake up super early in order to get to class on time so this made it a lot easier to be able to get my work done,” Grant said.
Grant says she had the ability to stay up later without having to worry about the repercussions of not going to bed early. In her spare time, she usually spends it doing her homework. “I actually woke up refreshed the next morning with enough time to get ready at my own pace and even cook myself breakfast,” Grant said.
“If I really had a choice, I probably wouldn’t go to Senior Week if it were still held,” Grant said. “I’d rather spend my time doing something else if it isn’t something I wasn’t interested in the first place.”
Other students decided not to take the STAR test and consequently followed the seniors’ schedule.
Junior Robin Hansen decided to opt out of taking the STAR test this year to study for the SATs instead. “I found that studying for the SATs would be a better use if my time, and my parents agreed,” Hansen said.
The timing of the testing period, however, baffled her. “I don’t mind how the periods are arranged. It just didn’t make sense to me why we didn’t start testing at the beginning of the week, as opposed to starting it halfway through the week and going into the next,” Hansen said
Hansen says not taking the SATs won’t affect her when it comes to college recommendations because the schools she wishes to apply to don’t ask for them. However, she does have friends whose teachers told them they wouldn’t get recommendations for college if they didn’t take the STAR test.
“Like I said, in my spare time I studied for the SATs which I will be taking for the first time in May.
By not taking the STAR test, I was able to prepare myself for the SATs without having to bother with STAR testing,” Hansen said.
