Skipping is a little talked about topic in our schools. You hear it a couple times the first few days of school; they give out the same presentation in every class explaining the rules of the school and the punishments for breaking them. Other than that? Not much else is mentioned. 

They touch on the consequences of skipping in those presentations through mentioning the closed campus policy, but how does the system of documenting incidences of skipping work? 

From my experience the last two years: The way the school system dictates whether to call home or not to document a skipping incident is strange. If you miss 1st block, they will always call home. If you come to 1st block, but miss 2nd block they call home, too. If you show up to 3rd block, but don’t come back after your lunch, the teacher will write a referral, but they won’t always call home. If you do not show up to 3rd or 4th block at all, the school relies on a skipping report. 

For more information, I decided to interview the principals of the school to see if I could get more insight on the system that documents incidents of skipping. I interviewed Mr. Royster, Mr. Scholl, and Ms. Huber and they taught me a few new things about the system.

When I asked about what defenses were in place to prevent skipping, Ms. Huber responded, “the skip report is emailed daily to the staff, and teachers check the report for accuracy, in addition to the phone call home.  I personally check the skip report periodically, at least weekly.   The skip report is also used to review for mistakes- such as [if] a sub misses a student, or the student is in SAFE and the teacher was not notified, or the student was with another staff member and the schedule teacher was not notified…..or the student skipped”.

The flaw with this reporting procedure is most teachers don’t understand the system either. Most believe if they mark you as absent you get a call home, but this is not always the case. Phone calls home are the main deterrent to skipping, followed by possible day in S.A.F.E. Currently, the principals are looking in to a way to reprogram the system, so that students will receive a phone call no matter what block they are marked absent. 

In all of my time of skipping (trust me, I did a lot) I only was punished twice. Both times, I received a phone call home and two days of S.A.F.E. Although I thought I wasn’t being punished, I was. I didn’t realize the consequences for skipping were more than what the school system gave me.

All the time I was skipping, I was failing classes. My parents were yelling at me. Reflecting on these consequences made me realize: people that are skipping on a consistent basis simply don’t care. You can’t make a person do something, they have to want to do it. All it takes is to throw skin in the game. 

For me, “the skin” this year was being able to get my driver’s permit and a job. I couldn’t last year and had to wait because I was a failing two classes–one elective and one mandatory. This was another unseen consequence to skipping.  Learn from my mistakes. Don’t skip. It will only dig you into a deeper hole than you planned.