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Zac Glenn
Is skipping school really a bad thing?
Is skipping school really a bad thing? Most people believe skipping school causes poor grades. I for one can prove otherwise. I thought since I had straight A’s that I could come and go as I please, and I could; until I got lazy. Skipping school doesn’t cause poor grades; poor grades come from getting caught for skipping school. That’s how it went for me at least.
This was my first year at Thornton High. Before Thornton, I attended Shawnee Heights High School in Topeka, Kansas. Right after completing my junior year, I decided to move to Colorado to live with my father. I spent summer making friends and working a part-time job. Summer quickly passed and the first day of my senior year finally arrived. I started off the year just like every other year. I had the “staying on top of things” mentality. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into; one thing was for sure though, it was my senior year and I was going to have the time of my life.
Classes were easy compared to the high standards of my high school back in Kansas. I actually could have graduated even before starting my senior because I had accumulated enough credits from my previous high school. They gave me the option of not even attending and just walking with the senior class at the end of the year. My father wasn’t for the idea so I went to school. I took the easiest classes possible. I figured this would be an easy way to raise my above average GPA.
After a couple of weeks of settling into all my classes my father planned a trip back to Kansas. A Friday to Sunday trip, meaning I’d leave Thursday after school. My father asked me to dial the school so he could let them know I was going to be absent. I dialed and waited for staff to answer. The school’s automated system started to frustrate me with all the “press 1” “press 5” “press 2”. My frustration was soon tossed to the curb when I listened to the best thing I thought I’d ever heard:
“To report an absence, please state the student’s name, spell the last name, and the reason for the absence. –BEEP-“
I was amazed; never in my whole school career had I ever gotten a recording to report a tardy or an absence. My mind flashed back to the time when my grandmother called the house phone and I answered:
“Hello”, I answered.
“Ronnie, how are you dear?” she replied.
“Grandma it’s me, Zac.”
“What? I swear you sound just like your father.”
That’s when all the thoughts started to cook. I could call myself in everyday if I wanted to. Although I would need to keep up my grades, otherwise there would be no point or explanation for it.
Once I returned from my trip to Kansas, I started my scheming. I took Wednesdays off to hangout with my girlfriend. I called in my first couple of hours to sleep in. I carried out all my objectives. I kept all A’s in my classes, from doing makeup work the next time I happened to be at school.
In the beginning I only skipped class once, at the most twice a week. Soon I became lazy and basically turned myself in. I still maintained A’s, but I started skipping school twice to three times a week. I began sharing my school skipping adventure with others. I started getting lazy and saying the same thing on the school’s automated message system. It was these little things that would ultimately lead to my downfall.
My father received an email and called me down from my room one night.
“Zac, did you skip you last two hours today?”
“Um… yeah, how do you know?”
“I got this email from one of your teachers suspecting that you’ve been skipping class. Is this true? Has it happened more than this time?”
“Well… yes, I have taken a couple other days off as well.”
“What!?”
That conversation landed me in the dean’s office along with my father and the dean himself. We found out that I didn’t just skip a couple other days as well; I had skipped over 50 days. My jaw dropped, “what!?” Next, even worse news threw my jaw out the door and down the stairs, “I’m going to have to count you as unexcused in place of all these excused absences.” Remember all those makeup assignments I completed to maintain a 4.0 GPA? That went out the door and down the stairs, and met up with my jaw.
I returned to school the next day and faced all my teachers. I now had a mixture of B’s and C’s. I finished out the year with high B’s, and attended each class everyday. When my family found out about my adventure they scolded me, and I couldn’t have agreed more! If I had not become so lazy, so confident, so stupid to think my plan was flawless no matter what I did, I would have gotten away with everything. Although this isn’t the idea or lesson my family had or intended me to learn, I just agreed that we were all on the same page. I will never skip a day of… high school again.
What do you think? CnC? I'll hear ya, won't promise I'll agree.
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