With the start a new school year comes new guidelines for senior and junior privileges. Here are this year’s requirements for privileges from the student handbook.

Senior Privileges:

• You must be a senior and in your fourth year of high school.
• You must have completed and documented at least 30 hours of community service since freshman year.
• You must get parental approval.
• You must complete the senior privileges form, available at the main office.
• You must get administrative approval.

Senior privileges allow seniors to leave school whenever they have a free period, as long as they come back when they have class.

Junior Privileges:

• You must be a member of the junior class and in your third year of high school.
• You must get parental approval.
• You must get administrative approval.

With junior privileges, students can arrive to school early given they have free blocks first, second, and/or third period. Similarly, a junior with his or her privileges is allowed to leave school after their last class of the day; however, if they wish to return to school, juniors must come back after the final bell.

Students who violate these privileges can get them revoked in cases of excessive tardiness, demerit-based probation or other rule infractions. Additionally, all school rules are in effect even when students are off campus, so if students are found to violate these rules, privileges may be taken away. The parents of the student will be informed, and the student will no longer be able to leave campus.

“Usually the hope is that we stop them before they leave; we call them back in and have them fill in the right paperwork,” assistant principal Scott Parseghian said. “If they continue to do it, run up the hill or try to escape, we catch them and give them demerits.”

Students will most likely receive three demerits on the first offense and more if the behavior is continued.

“Just get the paperwork,” Parseghian said. “If you get the paperwork, everything will be easy. For seniors, it’s simple. Just get the paperwork.”

To ensure that students that are leaving have their privileges, parking lot supervisor Dana Kanupp has been stopping cars before they leave. When Parseghian attended the high school as a student, WHS had two parking lot supervisors. Budget cuts over the years have decreased this to one part-time supervisor.

“We’re trying to create safety, making sure it’s only seniors and juniors when they are done with classes. We are ‘in loco parentis,’ so in school we take the place of parents and have to make sure the kids stay safe,” Parseghian said. “We did have a person last year, except he was more inside, not outside, but his job was to still go outside and check on the kids.”

Parseghian believes that Kanupp is very effective.

“Just hearing the seniors and juniors talking about him and making jokes, that means he’s doing his job,” Parseghian said.