
Skip Day (also called Senior Day, Senior Skip Day, Ditch Day, Senior Ditch Day, Cut Day, or Senior Cut Day) is a tradition in schools where students in the
senior class
skip school.
Description
It is commonly held the school day following
senior prom, the Monday after the
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...
, on
Halloween
Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...
or other holidays on which students are not given the day off from school, or after another large event. Often, students will gather at an alternate location during skip day.
School administration reactions can vary greatly in response to Skip Day. Some schools openly encourage the practice, helping the students pick a day to take off and advising teachers not to schedule exams on that day.
There is no generally agreed-upon beginning to the tradition, but there are records of skip days as far back as the 1930s.
The film ''
Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' was a catalyst for several Senior Skip Days in the 1980s and mid 1990s. At
Caltech, "Ditch Day" has become an annual tradition.
The occasion was also notably depicted in
Steven Spielberg's 2022 semi-autobiographical film ''
The Fabelmans'', in which the protagonist
Sammy Fabelman films 16mm footage of his school's "Ditch Day" at the beach during a
montage sequence set to
James Darren's "
Goodbye Cruel World." This culminates in a short film that Sammy then edits, highlighting the events of that day, which is presented at his school's
prom.
See also
*
Inset day
In education, an inset day (an abbreviation of in-service training day; alternatively INSET day) is a Academic year, school day on which teaching sessions are not conducted and students do not attend school, but teachers are required to attend f ...
*
Senioritis
References
Further reading
* {{cite web , last1=Swasko , first1=Mick , last2=Gregory , first2=Ted , title=Ditch Day: Bonus senior ditch day irks administrators , website=
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
, date=May 6, 2011 , url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2011/05/06/bonus-senior-ditch-day-irks-school-administrators/ , access-date=May 12, 2017
Student culture
Unofficial observances
April observances
June observances