With the first semester of the 2019-20 school year officially over, seniors are beginning to look forward to the infamous “Senior Spring.” Senior Spring is a period of time in which seniors begin to anticipate their graduation, but also reminisce on their four years at the high school.

During Senior Spring there are many fun activities for the seniors to participate in, such as the senior show, senior skip day, hill night, senior cruise and graduation parties. With all the activities going on, it can be hard for seniors to balance things like homework and schoolwork, however, most students seem to think the second semester of senior year is easier than the first, and that life tends to be more relaxed.

Senior Melissa Tilley believes that her workload will change immensely in the second semester because of her lack of classes.

“[During] the second semester we drop wellness, and then I [also] dropped art and senior seminar, so it’s a lot less packed,” Tilley said.

As much as the seniors enjoy the second semester and feel as though it is less work, some teachers find that the opposite is true, but more seniors try less. History teacher David Gavron believes that during the second semester some students start to really deprioritize school work.

“There are some students who cut back on doing homework [altogether] or doing homework in a timely manner,” Gavron said. “They will [either] pass it in late, or not do it at all.”

According to Gavron, there are many possibilities as to why senior students might tend to back off on their work a bit.

“[They] might slack off because they feel they have worked so hard, and this is [now] their time [to not] give the same effort they have given the past four years,” Gavron said.

Teachers hate to see this drop in effort from students, but find it tough to figure out how to motivate them. Gavron often finds himself in a tricky spot when trying to motivate seniors during Senior Spring, but has found that there are often two ways to approach this situation.

“One is giving them the freedom that they want, and they will suffer the consequences of their actions. The other [way] is trying to find ways to motivate them,” Gavron said.

Although Gavron tends to see a decrease in effort from his students during “Senior Spring,” It seems as though the change of effort may also depend on the level of the class, as well as the class itself. For example, Spanish teacher Jill Swenson finds that her AP students seem to work just as hard during the second semester as they did during the first semester.

”When it starts to get really warm out is when I usually see the best work from my students,” Swenson said.

Swenson says that her AP students are all high achieving and that specifically during Senior Spring her students are all still attending class and happy to be there.

There are many things to look forward to during “Senior Spring,” but it’s important that seniors remain focused and continue their hard work to close their high school experience. “Senior Spring” is exciting and is an eventful way to end the year. Fortunately for many seniors, teachers understand that it’s hard to maintain a good balance between fun and schoolwork.