Opinion: Lauren South Comments on the Senior Incentive

Students at THS look forward to their senior year not only because it’s their last year in high school, but because they have senior incentive, a reward given to seniors that exempts them from their exams if they meet the requirements.

A majority of seniors love the possibility of  being exempt from their exams, but is senior incentive really a good thing?  Is it helping them or hurting them?

As a senior, a part of me loves the incentive, but another part dislikes it.  I like how it rewards students who have shown up to school every day and kept their grades up.  It allows students who are applying to college around the time of exams to focus more on that and less on school. That can relieve some stress.

On the other side, senior incentive isn’t really helping students prepare for college.  They are going to have to take exams after high school, so they should continue to take them during their senior year.  Senior incentive also encourages students to come to school when they’re sick since they can only have two absences.  When one person comes to school sick, they get the people around them sick as well.

The way senior incentive is currently set up encourages students to not miss a day, it should also be encouraging seniors to get good grades. I think the requirements for the incentive need to change.  Students could be allowed at least one unexcused absence as well as the two excused, but they should have to maintain an ‘A’ average for second and fourth quarters instead of a ‘C.’

If a student has an ‘A’ average, then the exam can only bring their grade down, so the exam could only hurt the student.  However, an exam could really help a student bring their grade up if they have lower than an ‘A’ in the class, so those seniors should take their exams.

Seniors may currently benefit from having senior incentive but when college exams come, some might wish that they had taken a few more exams to better prepare themselves for the road ahead.