This year, the policy was revised. Students who miss class three times without an approved excuse are warned of the possibility of failing and referred to a counselor. Five unapproved absences require submission of an appeal to determine whether the absences were officially excused and recorded correctly. Students with unexcused absences can submit an attendance intervention plan describing how they will make up missed work. Students who don’t take either step would be at risk of failing, according to Goodwin, head of the group of MCPS high school principals who revised the policy. Administrators say new attendance software is helping inform parents and students about the appeal process and making it easier to access.
Michael Doran, principal of Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, says his staff already has seen an improvement in attendance because of the revised policy.
Despite the term, senioritis can affect underclassmen, as well. For one thing, there’s a trickle-down effect. Doran remembers when his son, Sam, was a junior nine years ago at Whitman and taking a science class with seniors in the third quarter of the year. Teamed with two seniors for an important project, Sam discovered they weren’t interested in doing the work.
“He’s a junior, thinking: I’m tied to these bloody seniors and they don’t care,” Doran says, remembering his son’s frustration that he couldn’t count on the other students to do their share.
Principals say that younger students who take classes with seniors have been known to start skipping class during the spring, too, as though infected by their older classmates. Liam Gallagher, now a senior at Walter Johnson, recalls succumbing to the lure of the warming weather in the spring of 2011. “Right before summer break, everyone in my grade got senioritis even though we were juniors,” he says. “We were so excited to get out of school. My brain would not work.”
Gallagher, who wants to be a biologist, says he’s focusing hard on his classes this year, including AP biology, because he knows that getting good grades is important to his college plans. Still, he’s “really worried about the last quarter, because that’s when it affected me last year. That’s when all my grades dropped. You really want to care, but you just don’t.”
He says some classmates no longer worry about keeping their grades up because college applications have already been submitted. He mentions one “brilliant” classmate who earned A’s throughout the first three years of high school.
“All her grades have dropped to C’s and B’s,” he says. “I’ve been asking her about it, and she’s like, ‘I’m a senior. I can do whatever I want.’ ”
To keep seniors motivated, parents and school guidance counselors might remind them that colleges can revoke admission if their grades drop. It’s no idle threat, says David Hawkins, director of public policy and research for the National Association for College Admission Counseling. According to the association’s 2008 State of College Admissions report, one-third of 382 participating colleges reported revoking at least one admissions offer in 2007. Of those, 69 percent revoked at least one offer because of a decline in grades.
Landau says letters revoking admission to former students are posted by counselors in the Whitman guidance office as a warning.
Merit scholarships also may be reduced if a student doesn’t maintain a required grade point average, Hawkins says. He adds that students do themselves a disservice by taking the second semester off regardless of grades. “There’s lots of talk already about the gap between high school learning and the skills needed to succeed in college,” he says. “The tendency to trail off at the end of high school is not necessarily a good indication that a student is going to succeed at an institution.”
Landau advises parents to continue monitoring the school’s online grade reporting and attendance systems. “Once a kid gets the college acceptance, the parents stop watching, too,” Landau says. But “the job of parenting is not done until graduation.”
Parents also can help keep students motivated by urging them to pursue internship opportunities or to take college courses, school officials say.
At Wootton, more than 120 seniors are taking courses at Montgomery College through the College Institute program, a partnership between the college and MCPS that allows juniors and seniors to earn up to 30 college credits per year. A three-credit course costs about $430. Qualified seniors at Walter Johnson and Whitman can earn college credits through the University of Maryland’s Young Scholars Program, which offers introductory college courses at the schools. Cost is about $900 for a three-credit course.
Teicher’s son, Ethan, took a history course through the University of Maryland program last fall at Walter Johnson. “It’s a nice idea of what college might be like and gives seniors that breathing room they so desperately crave,” Teicher says.
Similarly, internships offer a taste of a real-world job and life after high school. “The idea is to have our students in 12th grade not have to be in school all day,” Doran says.
A big factor in keeping senioritis at bay is nurturing connections to school through sports, music, drama and club participation. “The more connected the student is to school, the less chance they’ll have senioritis,” Landau says.
