Every other district in the metro area except for Bellevue Public Schools allows their Seniors the option to graduate at semester. Why does Bellevue Public Schools not give their seniors this option? If you complete and pass all of your classes for your Freshman through Junior year then you should be ahead of your credits for your Senior year. 

If I have already met my requirements for graduation, then why should I have to go to school for an entire extra semester? There are multiple benefits to graduating early. I could get a head start on college, or pick up some extra hours at a job. School may just not be a place where some people thrive but they still want to try their hardest to get in and get out. Our school system is doing a disservice to its students by not allowing them the opportunity of early graduation.

 What irritates me even more is that students in the Chieftain Center are allowed to work ahead in their classes and are allowed to finish early. They have the potential to finish an entire semester’s worth of classes in less than a month if they actually try. Why am I coming to school everyday, doing my homework and paying attention in class when I can miss days of school at a time then go to the Chieftain Center and work ahead in my classes? It seems like a contradiction to give kids that are not even doing the bare minimum the privilege of finishing their classes early and graduating before everyone else. If you are going to give some kids that option, you need to give it to all of them. 

Especially the ones that are doing everything they need to do. It is a slap in the face to be trying really hard, then someone who is doing a fourth of the work that you are is given special privileges. I remember back in elementary school when for every page of homework we did we got a “dollar” and if you had 5 dollars at the end of the week you got to pick from the prize bucket. There was this one kid who never listened, if he had just one dollar at the end of the week he was allowed to get a prize. 

Why was he allowed to still get a prize with his one dollar when everybody else had to have five? We are teaching kids that it is okay to do whatever you want and we will cater to them and do what we can to make it easier for them. The school system babies the troubled students and always makes it a big deal when they do what is expected of them, but the kids that have always done what they are supposed to and are excelling they are rarely acknowledged. I do admit they are trying to get better about this with things like PBIS tickets, but it is still not enough.