Much of the senior class celebrated Senior Skip Day on April 1, an annual tradition late in the year to either stay home or celebrate, most commonly at Sauvie Island. The administration doesn’t authorized it, and the event has proven controversial in the past. This year was no exception.

Complicating matters: Skip day was set before the 60-day rule took effect,  a regulation that states seniors will not walk on graduation day if they incur a three-day suspension or worse within the final 60 days of school.

    Plans for Senior Skip Day began in late March. Students posted where and when on the Class of 2016 Facebook page and senior Elliott Ballato officially announced students would gather at Sauvie Island and the Columbia Gorge.

“Teachers understand,” Ballato wrote on Facebook. “[Senior skip day] happens every year.”

But in fact, the administration saw the posts and discouraged attendance. Principal Peyton Chapman emailed parents to be wary about the 60-day rule and to discourage seniors from using drugs and alcohol at this critical time. Chapman wrote that the rule “was established to help encourage seniors to make safe and healthy choices at the end of senior year as this time of transition is often a time when students can make poor decisions that can lead to injury, harm others, or jeopardize future plans.“

     “Our children are our greatest joy and we have mourned as other communities have witnessed fatal car accidents and other injuries in recent years,” Chapman said in her email. While Chapman’s email intended to keep seniors safe, but some students found the email patronizing.

“If [the administration] want[s] a group of people, the majority of which are 18 years old, to listen to and respect concerns, maybe address us as adults and talk to us directly instead of emailing our parents and suggesting chaperones,” Carrie Anne Jones wrote on Facebook.

This year, of course, is not the first Senior Skip Day that administration has discouraged. Last year, one of three senior skip days was April 20, a date associated with the use of marijuana. It proved to be controversial as the administration raised similar concerns about students driving under the influence.

But despite concerns, many seniors took part in the tradition, judging from the empty hallways at Lincoln on April Fool’s Day, which only makes sense. The administration cannot prevent students from skipping classes. And while no major injuries were reported from either locations on senior skip day, it did raise a conversation about the dangers of adolescent alcohol and drug use that could limit future seniors’ abilities to organize these events.