Why the extra week?

Creston’s graduation brought up a question I’ve been asking for years. I’m not sure if it was because my high school was private, or just special in this. In my head, school ends, and then you have graduation. There is no school that continues after graduation. Apparently, that’s not the case for most schools.

This year, Creston High School had their graduation ceremony Sunday, May 19. The week following that ceremony, freshmen through juniors had one more week of school, without the graduating seniors. This raises multiple questions.

Do seniors have less required school days than other students? If not, are they making the rest of the students go to school more days than required? While I get that students overall can go to school more than the state-required amount of days, it’s weird to me that some classes might continue without any seniors.

For these classes that had seniors: What does the class do the final week? Do the rest of the students just hang out for the last week? When do finals happen? Do seniors not have to take finals for these classes? If that were true, I’d save all my hardest classes for the last semester.

If seniors don’t have to take these finals, how do their grades work? Are grades just cut off before the last week? Are their grades weighted differently?

My senior year, just like every other year at my high school, everyone had their last day of classes the Friday before Memorial Day. The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend is when the school always has graduation. Finals are held the last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with Friday being a half day. The last day of school is the last day of school for everyone, freshmen through seniors.

I’ve always wondered about this. I remember being in high school and seeing the local public school have their graduation the same weekend as ours, but continue school for another week or two after. Why would the students be punished like this? That was the main thought in my mind.

A lot of students have friends in other grades. It would suck to endure the last week of school and finals without some of your best friends.

This is just another part of my list of public school things that confuse me. It might be that I’m either confused or just a little sheltered from going to private Christians schools all the until college, but that list continues to grow.

This probably depends on the school, but a friend that went to the local public school back home said lockers weren’t used at all. She didn’t even know where her’s was the last two years of high school. They just carried all their books and supplies with them from class to class in a backpack.

At my high school, our lockers were our central point of contact. We weren’t allowed to carry backpacks around the school, partly for safety reasons. Along with books and school supplies, our lockers are where we kept our coats, lunches and any other extra-curricular items. We had just enough time between classes to go back to our locker, grab our new supplies and get to the new class.

I also remember the first time my school had drug dogs brought to check our lockers my senior year. The high school had been around for more than 70 years and had never had drug dogs come check the school. The staff (incorrectly) assumed that since we all paid big money to go to a Christian school, none of us would ever do something like touch an illegal substance. While that was the first time the dogs came, it certainly wasn’t the last.

My public school friends, on the other hand, were very used to drug dog checks. They had school resource officers there year round and were routinely checked for illegal substances.

These are just a couple small things, with plenty more I could add. Don’t get me started on how terrified I was of public school dances.

All of this is not to put down public schools, but just to point out how different the experience can be for students. I’m glad my school used lockers and ended school together, but I am jealous of the public school students who get to wear sweatpants and chew gum, something our school never allowed.