On May 18, the students will come in to make up for time lost from snow days and delays. Some students are confused as to why they should have to come in on a weekend instead of just coming in on May 31, the day after the senior’s last day and the date of the crimson carnival.

Mrs. Hummel said, “The 31st isn’t an option to replace the 18th.  It needs to be an additional day. I’m sure everyone is happy that they can graduate on a Friday instead of a Monday so that shouldn’t be an issue.”

The seniors are already getting credit for the 31st and all the days in June leading up to graduation. Since they can’t get credit for the same day twice, they have to come in on a Saturday to graduate on a Friday.

This day of extra schooling is only for the senior class, but there’s no reason for seniors to panic. It’s only four hours. From eight to twelve, the seniors will come in to school for the sake of graduating on June 7th. Saturday seems like the worst day to do this sort of thing, but it is ultimately what the seniors want. You may have thought that a school day would count as long as students were fed lunch, but that’s only partially true. Required schooling isn’t measured in days. It’s measured in hours. We’ve had so many two-hour delays, three-hour delays, and snow-related vacation days that the total number of hours has come up short.

Perhaps it still seems a bit silly that seniors would want to come in on a Saturday morning. The driving force behind the desire to accomplish the hourly goal before graduation is because of Senior Week. It’s a fun time at the beach with friends and no rules. Seniors spend hundreds of dollars to reserve their rooms a year in advance. Unfortunately, the senior class of 2019 collectively neglected the fact that they live in Northeastern Pennsylvania and didn’t account for more than a week of snow days when planning their vacations. You can only imagine the frustration they felt when graduation came on the cusp of their crisp summer vacations.

Senior Zach Turnitza was worried about whether or not he’d have to cancel his summer plans. He said, “I’m very thankful to be able to graduate on a June 7th. I love Pottsville and wouldn’t trade my time spent at the Castle on the Hill for anything, but all good things must come to an end. I’m excited to leave so I could spend my time at the beach with my friends.”

Other seniors, like Donna Lonergan, were less frustrated about the loss of hours, but are still happy to come in on Saturday. “I think it’s interesting to see the school taking steps like these to accommodate for our loss of hours. Although it is a little confusing why we couldn’t have just had our last day of classes on May 31st instead. It would have been nice to have Mr. Sterner sing me happy birthday. I’m not going to senior week so it honestly doesn’t affect me that much, but with the different classes like Gary’s Self-Defense, I think it might turn out to be sort of fun.”

There will be several events organized during the session on the 18th to teach students about the real world outside of the classroom. Senior Gary Chen, for example, will be teaching self-defense classes, as he is a karate teacher with a second-degree black belt. But seniors won’t just be doing karate all day. There will be classes with CPR training, learning how to use a voting machine, how to maintain a car by changing tires and oil, survival swimming and life-saving techniques, and many more activities to help prepare these students for their lives after high school.