Every senior deals with the inevitable case of Senioritis in their last semester of high school, where attendance issues increase and performance and motivation decrease. Teachers at West always see this trend second semester with every senior class. This year’s senior class is experiencing this phenomenon in a different way.

This year’s graduating class of 2020 has an overall attendance rate of 92%. On average about 18 seniors miss school per day. Aside from issues with being tardy, overall seniors this year are going to class and avoiding Senioritis as much as they can. (Although there are seven seniors who have lost their privileges to walk at graduation for refusing to follow attendance contracts). Overall, attendance hasn’t been that big of an issue among this year’s graduating class.

Teachers and students at West believe Senioritis is manifesting within students differently and is affecting the senior class in subsequent ways.

Teachers who predominantly teach seniors have noticed a trend with class performance and effort. The district’s graduation requirements are very lenient and a good portion of the senior class could’ve graduated a year early since all required classes were passed. As a result of this, West seniors have taken the path of least resistance to get by their senior year. Students are taking easy classes, attending only as much as they need to to pass the class, and getting away with it since it is the end of the year and they don’t have anything to work towards. This bare-minimum work ethic and apathy within the seniors is cutting them short of their academic experience and potential during their final semester in school.

Other teachers and administration believe this behavior is taking place in the seniors as a result of graduation coming up too soon and the students not having a plan for their future lives. A student from an anonymous interview said, “It’s just getting hard to stay motivated to graduate because I still don’t know what I’m doing after high school. “My grades are bad and I can’t go to college and I’m just lost.”   Reality has set in for the seniors; those with a plan are optimistic and excited for the future, and those without are lost without direction.

Many seniors, if not all of them, can attest to the dread and push it takes to get through the second semester of their last year. Joseph Ramirez said, “Senioritis is very real. Some of us have already put in the work the first three years and we have it easy in the end, but everyone else must think there’s no point in trying if there’s no positive side to the year ending.”

In the meantime, seniors will continue to work on their focus.  Elijah Wood said, “It’s affecting my focus in class and my attendance and pretty much everyone else’s around me- you can tell that people are starting not to care.”