From the day students walk into BV West as a freshman, they are looking forward to being a senior and being at the top of the food chain. They look up to the senior class and think about when they will be in the senior’s shoes and having the privileges of dropping JAG, shortening their schedule second semester, senior skip days and tailgating together as a family. Some of this year’s seniors feel as though they have had many of those privileges taken away.

A week prior, seniors started planning a senior skip day for Sept. 29, 2017. There was a lot of talk about it through the halls and on social media, and administration and staff soon found out about the day. BV West’s principal, Dr. Brett Potts, then sent an email out to the parents of seniors which read that he had “instructed teachers to carry on” with lesson plans and when “your student tells you, “Nobody’s going to be there” or “we won’t be doing anything… please don’t buy it.” Other things such as “please don’t cave,” and “please don’t lie for your kid,” were also shared in the email.

Dr. Potts felt he had numerous reasons to send the email.

“It takes a long time to recover from mass absences as a school,” Potts said. “I think students and parents are thinking about just themselves and just how nice it would be for them to have that day but I am not able to do that; I have to think about the whole school, so I’m not in favor of mass absence days.”

Senior privileges are a right of passage and it is frustrating to have them taken away.

Although Potts, as an administrator, is not in favor of senior skip days, he had a different opinion when he was in high school and participated in his own senior skip day.

“There was a senior skip day in my senior year in high school,” Potts said. “So I did [skip], and there were consequences for that and it wasn’t fun.”

An in-school suspension was the price Potts paid for participating in his senior skip day.

Changes have occurred with sports tailgating. Some of the senior class does not agree with the changes because it is their last year and it is very distressing. Last year a tailgate took place at a girls soccer game during the spring. At this tailgate, administration was made aware that there were non-school sponsored activities taking place.

“We [administration] were made aware that perhaps we had some kids that had been drinking or were drinking in conjunction with that game,” Roach said.

Rumors started to spread that students were no longer allowed to tailgate anymore due to what happened at last year’s event and some seniors felt like it was something being taken away. Because of the activities that were going on, administration decided to make a designated area at the DAC where tailgating can take place.

According to Roach, the designated tailgating areas are not a punishment.

“[It is] more for safety and security so that no matter which school is playing there, the security officers who are working those games will know these are the areas that tailgating can take place,” Roach said.

In short, the misconception that tailgating has been taken away is incorrect.

The right to tailgate in each class’s unique way is being tarnished with these changes and designated areas.

One of the most discussed changes in privileges is JAG time. Seniors in previous years have been able to drop JAG at the end of first quarter. BV West started a new schedule this year and there has been some confusion as to if seniors would still be able to do so.

According to Potts, the inability to drop JAG is a matter of education laws rather than punishing the senior class.

“When you start looking at what the state requirements are in terms of time and how you classify in-class time versus time in JAG, where there’s academic support being offered, versus lunch where there is not academic support being offered, I am fearful that the state would not allow us to continue that practice because we are already, particularly in the senior class, too close to the limit for my comfort level,” Potts said.

The ability to drop JAG has always been something to look forward to and this class has been cheated of that privilege.

Many seniors have expressed a wish for BV West to be an open campus, allowing seniors to leave during JAG. However, due to Blue Valley policy, no high schools can be open campuses.

Although the ability to drop JAG is no longer available for the senior class, administration is open to dialogue about different senior privileges.

“In that schedule there’s opportunities for seniors to come to me with some ideas about how we might be able to structure in some reward time or some privileges for seniors,” Potts said.

There are different ideas in the works for scheduling, as far as shortening JAG on Tuesday and then potentially having a late arrival on Tuesday in addition to Thursday’s.