Most students wonder what it would be like to only have four days of school a week. Tennis players, however, don’t have to wonder. Once tournament season beings, tennis players miss nearly every Friday for nearly two months.
Leading up to the state tournament in mid-March, players miss seven full days of school over the course of seven weeks. Then, depending on how well they do during individuals, they could miss up to another eight days in six weeks. And as awesome as that may sound, missing that much school in such a short period of time is extremely stressful for students and teachers. Especially since it falls right before AP and TAKS testing.
Make-up work comes in a vicious cycle when you miss so often. Due to all the test and quizzes given on Friday’s, players have to come in early in the mornings to make them up the next week. Unfortunately, they cannot utilize after-school tutorials because they have practice, and teachers only get to school so early, so only one test or quiz can really be taken on a given morning. This means that players are still coming in on Wednesday or Thursday morning just to make assignments up from the last week, and then they must worry about somehow getting all the information they missed. However, by this time, they are already missing another day, and then the cycle repeats itself.
Not only is this a major inconvenience to students, but to teachers, too. They have to either come in earlier than usual in the mornings to accommodate their students’ schedules, or they have to keep extending deadlines and making exceptions for them. Due to this, some teachers pretty much hate tennis players, and they often do not shy away from telling that to the players.
Some teachers alter things for all their students, just to accommodate tennis players. Chemistry teacher Jason Taylor has repeatedly said that he avoids putting tests and quizzes on Fridays because he has so many students that miss them, and math teacher Keith Christian flipped his classroom, so that the only things players would miss would be an opportunity to work on the homework in class. While this was not only because of tennis players, they played a large part, as it was primarily for the substantial number of students missing for various extra curricular activities.
Missing school every once in a while is enjoyable and do-able, but once the days you’re gone start piling up, you start to dread missing school. It’s more of a hassle than it is fun, and sometimes it seems as if the tournaments aren’t even worth going to because the competition isn’t great AND you have to make-up so much work.
However, once all the tournaments end and the school week is five days once again, I’m not prepared to go to school on Friday’s. That’s when tennis players start missing those short weeks.
Needless to say, missing school for tennis is complicated. It’s awesome, but it’s stressful. It’s fun to play the tournaments, but it’s a hassle to make-up tests and quizzes. You hate missing school during the season, but you dread going five days a week after the season ends.
