As the third quarter winds down for students across the country, end-of-quarter tests are ramping up, leaving students overwhelmed and stressed. With the increase of stress in schools, it was found in a study by the National Center of Education Statistics that “nearly 40% of schools report a strike in chronic absenteeism.” This intentional skipping  is very negative for students’ academic growth.

The truth is, staying home on test days isn’t benefiting anyone; in fact it is harming teachers. A lot of parents continue to allow their teenagers to miss school frequently, and it’s unacceptable. School is supposed to be a place to learn and grow your knowledge to further help you succeed in the future, but students are missing out on a lot of learning opportunities when they skip.

Students avoid tests and stay home or hide in the school so that they don’t have to worry about stress during the exam. This causes students to have increased absences, fall behind on classes, and have lower grades. Teachers have attempted to crack down on students skipping by making the test harder for absent students, writing students up to administration for having several tardies, and even having discussions with parents. However, none of these methods seem to work for students and teachers. Last school year, there was a big increase in absenteeism at Rock Ridge high school with 19% of students missing school for more than 10% of the school year.

So why do students skip? According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, there could be many reasons as to why students not only skip test days but class overall, ranging from dealing with mental health issues to just finding the classes boring. The overall effect of skipping students being grades dropping, disciplinary action, and the lack of respect from teachers. 

While students are most affected by skipping, the secondary party, the teachers, are also victims as they see skipping as a major hassle since they need to move to new units and can’t fall behind schedule. 

AP Computer Science Principles and Computer Math teacher Logan Flannigan has noticed that the number of absences on test day is especially high. “All I know is that more people skip on test days,” Flannigan said. “Especially if a student thinks they are kind of over their head in the class, they are most likely to skip.” 

To make things even worse for Flannigan due to the many absences in his class, he has more work on his already loaded pile. “I have to schedule a time for [the students] to retake but I also have to also go over the material again,” he said. “I get it if they’re sick or have a doctor’s appointment but if you’re constantly missing tests that it’s very obvious [to teachers].”

Of course, students may skip because they want to study more. By skipping a class, students may choose to study for the exams soon and have more time to finish their other class work. However, this practice is dishonest and an insult to the students who don’t skip exam day, but rather study hard with the time given to them by their teachers. 

Admittedly, there are many students who are just skipping because they don’t want to bother with tests.  Junior Kaitlin Koss thinks that skipping is generally bad for both sides, both students, and teachers. “Sure, [students] might get more time to study but chances are, anyone intentionally skipping a test most likely isn’t doing it to study for said test,” Koss said. 

When it comes to the teacher’s side, Koss is much more compassionate towards them. “Teachers have to deal with way more than they’re paid for,” Koss said. “Yet it’s a given that they’ll be the one to schedule the retake, put the grade, and go above and beyond to give support to even the most chronic of test skippers.”

So stop skipping on test day. Not only will teachers like Flannigan greatly appreciate it, but skipping is also an indicator of students being  detached from the most important part of school–learning. “We pick up knowledge for the test and live around the test without meaningfully consuming any processing material,” Koss said. “Skipping is a result of students only doing things and learning for the grade to pass, when that was never the point.”

So while students think that skipping will give them more time to study and prepare for a test, it only gives teachers an impression that they don’t think it’s important to show up on the most important days of class. 

And that’s the truth.