Senior Privilege is a tradition in St Mary’s, where the students have a set of privileges to enjoy for their last year of high school. This is mainly known by seniors wearing non-uniform clothes, which definitely makes them stand out in the hallways. For many underclassmen, Senior Privilege is a symbol of status and motivation, representing a goal they look forward to reaching themselves one day.
However, there were new things added to the privilege list this year for the seniors. They are the off-campus lunch break and off-campus study hall. In short, it lets seniors go outside during lunch and or during study hall, as long as they come back 5 minutes prior to next period. This new addition is aimed to “give students more agency in decision making, and trust them to make good choices”, according to Mr. Bayfield.
He commented that this policy can continue “as long as this extension of trust is met with good choices by you boys”, and that this policy can further extend in the future “the more the students demonstrate the core values of responsibility”, which will allow the school to have more examples of them treating seniors “like adults instead of children”. Ultimately, this means that the success of these new privileges will depend not only on the rules themselves, but on how responsibly seniors choose to use them.
