Remember how excited and relieved seniors were to have an open campus policy? Whatever happened to that? After three years of keeping up with our courses, assignments, and rules, high school seniors finally get the edge taken off through their final push.  However, a lot of seniors don’t actually get their stress taken away as now they have to prepare for college applications, visit schools, make decisions, and start saving up money, all while keeping up with their normal agendas of classwork, sports, clubs, and jobs.  Colleges even tell us, according to the creator behind getmetocollege.org, “Do not take a light senior year.  Colleges worry about students who take easy senior years with only a few core classes and fewer activities.”  We are thus a very stressed class, and as you grow up the responsibilities just keep growing. However, high school seniors are still technically kids and deserve a little reward for all their progress.  This is the whole point behind manifesting senior privileges, such as, “Senior parking, the first choice in class scheduling,… enrollment priority, and are given the best seats for pep assemblies,” suggested by various students from the Los Angeles Times.

I understand that each school is different and offers different senior privileges to fit their demands and curriculum, but you must stand by those privileges and offer them to every senior class in order to be fair.  In our school students fought years ago to earn certain senior advantages to make kids’ last year better for the incoming classes. Former Stamford High student, Colby Stalteri, wrote a suggestion piece for The Round Table asking our staff to allow seniors, “To leave campus during his or her study hall or lunch waves…[have] a discounted price on yearbooks… have a designated section in the front of the lot…[and] get to go to school sports games for free.”  All but the last two of these suggestions have become new privileges, yet our freedom of an open-campus is not being fulfilled.  

Authority is more worried about underclassmen skipping and failing their classes than making a senior year a little bit less stressful with open doors, which is completely understandable.  I have heard from multiple teachers and security guards that the principle does not want kids exiting from the black doors on the fourth floor, but to instead head to the parking lot from the top of the hill out the front of the building because underclassmen have been taking advantage of the black door’s unlocked availability.  We do not want kids skipping class, yet it also does not make sense for seniors to not be allowed to use the closet exit.  Current senior Aidan Rella states, “It is more convenient to leave out the gym doors in coordination with our classes’ locations versus walking to the front office back to the back parking lot.” There’s a reason behind not allowing students to leave and enter through any of the doors; an open campus, “Creates an opportunity for students to make poor, unsupervised choices… creates a safety risk for the school’s campus,” according to the Editor-and-Cheif of connectusfund.org, but there is a better solution that allows seniors to get the break they deserve.  

We all received a school ID card that we only really use for outside school functions like dances and games.  These ID’s include a picture of ourselves and what year we graduate, yet they serve no purpose for in school hours.  Seniors should be allowed to go in and out these black doors, and instead, show our cards to the security guard standing by to prove we are allowed to leave.  This would eliminate all the skipping of underclassmen and confusion, as well as allow us to get to class back in time with a security guard offering to open the door at the sight of our ID’s. This would also promote school security, as it not only makes sure that underclassmen do not skip but ensures that people who do not belong in the building at all don’t enter. If our Senior Privligages are granted, then when the time comes, future seniors can enjoy the freedom that comes with the stress of senior year.