Everyone deserves a mental health day once in a while. The problem is, seniors seem to believe they deserve plenty.

With Monday, October 7 as the unofficial “Senior Skip Day,” Friday, October 11 as a half day for all students, Monday, October 14 as a holiday with no school, and Wednesday, October 16 as a late arrival for seniors due to PSAT testing, the past couple weeks have contained an unusually less amount of instructional school days. Yet students still want more, and some are actually complaining for having to face the consequences of their several days off.

Whether those consequences are Friday Night School for absences or increased stress as a byproduct of a mounting workload, the solution for each relies in the topic of skipping school.  Administrators and teachers may not want to admit it, but skipping happens frequently throughout the year. The purpose of this editorial isn’t to persuade students to stop skipping (because that’s not going to happen), but rather to either skip less, or skip smarter.

Let’s start with the notion of skipping less, or ideally, not at all. On Wednesday, October 16, when seniors were granted late arrival, they were supposed to show up at 11:30 a.m. for a presentation. However, a large majority of the grade level did not show up and are now complaining about being counted absent. Think of it this way: the attendance clerk is just doing her job (recording student attendance), whereas students were not doing theirs (showing up to school). Hopefully, for the skippers, these unexcused absences don’t result in another round of Friday Night School slips, as last Monday’s absences from Senior Skip Day did. But here’s a novel idea to reduce the chances altogether: go to school. This is the simplest and fastest way to avoid an impending debacle with the attendance clerk, and therefore a dreadful evening of Friday Night School. If you show up to school, you aren’t counted absent, and therefore do not get in trouble for truancy. Simple.

Skipping less, or not at all, is also the simplest way to stay caught up with all your classes. If you’re not gone, you’re not missing the lesson and should therefore stay current with all your assignments. The solution to school-work related stress could not be more obvious.

My second proposal, skipping smarter, is a little less cut-and-dry. For the seniors complaining about drowning in assignments and stress who don’t fancy the first solution of going to school anyway, skipping smarter means that if you’re going to stay home, be productive with your time. And if you’re not going to be productive, don’t expect to receive any sympathy when you inevitably complain about how stressed you are.

Let’s say you have four projects due and three tests to study for and two chapters to read in your history textbook by tomorrow, perhaps it’s okay to take a mental health day and stay home to catch up. But, again, be smart about it. Assess the productivity level of each of your classes for the day. If you’re reviewing a PowerPoint which you know will be uploaded to SchoolTown, you wouldn’t be devastatingly setback for missing this class, and your time might be spent more productively at home–provided you stay focused. However, if you’ll be starting a new unit, taking a test, or listening to a lecture, you probably can’t afford to miss that class. Ultimately, everyone is the manager of his or her own time, so learn to maximize your productivity in whatever way you can.

But before you go breaking truancy laws in the name of productivity, be smarter still. If you truly insist on staying home, instead of just not showing up, have one of your parents email the front office with the reason you will not be attending. A quick note of parental permission could be the difference in your Friday night’s freedom. And what, you may ask, happens if your parents say no to you staying at home? Revisit the first solution: go to school.

To clarify again, I’m not encouraging students to skip school. What I am encouraging is an increased use of logic, and hopefully, as a byproduct, less hypocritical complaints from the senior class regarding absences and stress.

At the end of the day, I get it, your teachers get it, and the millions of graduated senior classes before you get it: you were immediately infected with both exuberance and senioritis at the sight of your first college acceptance letter. But you can’t actually attend college if you don’t graduate high school, so show up and get all your work done.

“Wow I’m so stressed from school…” doesn’t merit sympathy when the rest of the sentence should read “…because I skipped class to play video games and go to the State Fair with my friends.” So tone the senioritis down a little, tone the complaining down a lot, and learn to assert your angsty young-adult rebellion in a way that doesn’t land you an evening of Friday Night School or an overwhelming mound of homework. Both your life, and other people’s tolerance towards your inevitable complaints, will be better off for it.