By: Aggie Rieger

According to Principal Fred Skretta, roughly one-third of Oak Park seniors failed to attend school today — to them, the Royals game was a little bit more important.

“It’s a foolish thing to do. It doesn’t do anything good, really there’s no benefit to it,” Skretta said. “As a massive effort to have poor attendance, it hurts the district and school more than having fun.”

Students disagree. Junior Rosa Tapia already planned for and has become excited about her senior skip day next year.

“Right now I’m talking to some of my friends and we’re deciding a place to meet up. We’ll meet here and I’ll drive them wherever,” she said. “We’ll go to a game or arcade.”

This year, according to Tapia and many students, the majority of skipping seniors ditched school for the Royals vs. White Sox game at Kauffman Stadium.

“It’s like student day at the Royals stadium, so like everyone skipping in the area came,” said a senior, who was “conveniently sick” today.

According to the source, she has seen anywhere from 25 to 50 seniors at the game and 200 to 250 seniors total from the North Kansas City School District. To Skretta, this is a large problem not only for the school district, but for the individual students.

“That’s another problem for them, some are probably going to not meet A+ requirements and I’m betting some didn’t know about that. That’s a bummer, that’s a lot of money,” Skretta said. “If they didn’t know their attendance percentage going into that, it could be dangerous.”

Attendance was what kept some seniors in school, including Christina Palermo.

“It depends on how much you care [about attendance]. For me it’s pretty important because I’m doing Gold Medallion, but for a lot of people, it’s not a big deal,” Palermo said.

Halfway through the day, however, Palermo’s senoritis set in and she was ready to go.

“I’m trying to get my parents to let me out.”

According to Skretta, punishment still has yet to be discussed for skipping seniors. Still, Tapia eagerly awaited her day off.

“It’s just one day, so it’s not that bad,” Tapia said.

The majority of students continue to share Tapia’s mindset. And for the “conveniently sick” student, it is all worth the risk.

“It’s really fun [here at Kauffman]. It’s nice out, it’s gorgeous,” she said. “I’ll remember this for a long time. “