By the BP Editorial Board

Everyone knows second semester senior year. That’s when seniors slack off, idly wait for their college letters and skip classes to their hearts’ content.
But this year, Shalhevet chose to handle things differently. The Judaic staff introduced the new “mini-mester” program, and it just might successfully combat the dreadful senioritis – the so-called “disease” which prompts second semester seniors to ditch their classes.
Through the mini-mester program, seniors are granted a free period, still continue working in their AP classes, and are only enrolled in two, rather than three, Judaic courses. However, their Judaic classes are chopped up into several smaller units, in which the Judaic staff provides a plethora of creative seminars for the students to attend and participate in.
This new program is precisely what the doctor ordered. Being able to skip school is an appealing idea, but it sets a negative precedent for the younger grades, and is especially visible when seniors become completely absent from Town Hall. And when it’s not ludicrous for angry parents to demand a refund for their child’s nonexistent second-semester education, the disease spreads to the financial health as well.  In the past, this was the precedent the school had established.
Mini-mesters wants to rip up that precedent and create a fresh one, where Shalhevet will manage to keep the seniors in school this semester. The seniors are engaged and for the most part, staying at school. They are learning about things like kashrut on campus, Jewish identity, and even emotional and Judaic aspects of sex — topics that are directly relevant to seniors’ lives after high school, which is what they’re mostly thinking about now anyway.
This is the perfect balance between recognizing seniors’ different status and still requiring them to be at school. While some may think senioritis is perfectly normal, the cure is obviously much better – and more educational – than the disease.