Many high school seniors chose to sleep in and hang out with friends today in the spirit of “Senior Skip Day.”  But some seniors skipped the skip day.   

Seniors who were in school today cited a variety of reasons for being here.

Kids who had after-school activities were forced to attend.

“I have tutoring after school so I had to get out of bed anyways,” Claire Plunkett said.

For others, social probation was a key factor in their attendance, so they will be able to attend prom at the end of the year.

“I want to go to prom,” Adam Jackson said. His friends are out at the movies and sleeping, while he came to school and went through each of his classes like any other day.

“It’s a bonding experience for people who have 10 missed absences. Don’t even be two minutes late because it doesn’t matter — stay in school kids,” Jackson said.

But there are other benefits to coming to school today beyond just avoiding social probation.

“I actually like it when nobody else is here because they’re all annoying. A bunch of my friends went out for breakfast and they were all making plans without me, but I would have rather been here. I liked actually getting the chance to talk to my teachers,” Jaden Castine said.

It also provides a chance to get some work done, she said.

“I’m going to be missing a bunch of days coming up and I thought today I could use it as a day to get ahead of my work,” Castine said.

While some students have seen the day as an easy day, others are disappointed they had to come.

“I feel cheated,” John Lima said.

Senior Jacob Lombardi agreed.

“I’m here because I missed yesterday for a field trip and had some work to make up. I haven’t done anything all day. There have only been like five people in all of my classes,” Lombardi said.

Some didn’t get much of a choice.

“My mom didn’t want me to skip,” Sarah Pavlick said. “Plus I’ve gone on a lot of field trips lately so I figured it would be best to just come to school.”

English teacher Steve Sinning, who had mostly empty senior English classes today, looked back on his own Senior Skip Day as a Baldwin student.

“My friends and I used to play tackle football in South Park in the snow. It was a good time,” Sinning said.

MacKenzie Sendro, Mandi Bruni, Johnny Staley, Nick Pouch, Paige Crawley, and Areanna Bivens contributed to this report.