AHS students are starting to think of new and unheard-of ways to skip school, or their least favorite class at least. Most teachers and administrators no longer easily fall for the common excuses used by students.

While the classic excuses, such as illnesses or doctor appointments, may work for some who know how to present their case in a convincing way, there are only so many times that it will work until the attendance assistants start getting suspicious. Skipping class has become very frequent due to the widespread belief that “skipping is way too easy at Annandale,” according to senior Ghanim Alsaadi.

There are various ways students choose to miss class: The first is through the clinic. “Students just come in here and lie about some of the things,” clinic secretary Tracy Shakespeare said. “Most times it’s just ‘I’m sick’, ‘I have a headache’, ‘I have my period’, ‘I have cramps’,” she said as a student walked in at the same time and claimed “I’m dizzy.”

The second method is through their parents, whether the parents know it or not. “A young lady called her mom to just come get her,” security specialist KW Williams said. “So I stopped the car and told her she couldn’t leave but her mother got out and cursed me out in her language.”

Fortunately, not all parents are as willing to allow their child to miss their lessons. “[Students] bring fake letters or make false calls to check out but we get suspicious and call the parents or we compare the parent’s signatures from the past,” attendance secretary Shirley Altounian said. “Sometimes they tell us they have to go to funerals and then we find out there was no funeral.”

The third way to skip class, usually used by students who have nowhere to go outside of school, is to hide around the school for a few hours. One student, who wishes to stay anonymous, stored a sleeping bag in her locker and used it to sleep through math class in the large bathroom stall in the upstairs social studies hallway. The bathrooms are hot spots for anybody looking to take a break from learning. “Some have been hiding in the bathroom with their feet up on the stall,” Williams said. “And sometimes they’re taking their lunch in there with them, too.”

The last way, and perhaps the most risky way, is to just leave school grounds without notifying anybody. While it does go against the SR&R guidelines and could get them in serious trouble as Principal Randazzo spoke of on the Jan. 12 morning announcements, most students find themselves able to get away with it. “You just ask to go to student services and leave,” an anonymous student said. “We either go out to eat or just chill, and we’ve never gotten caught.”

Other students can’t help but get caught while attempting to sneak off of school grounds. “I’ve seen students trying to jump the fence in the back and then getting their pants stuck and torn,” Williams said.

Getting caught for skipping is not only embarrassing; it usually results in referrals and detentions. Cutting class does not seem worthy, since it only hurts the students, but apparently many aren’t understanding that. “These kids just do all sorts of things, it’s crazy,” Williams said.