Bellaire’s “Senior Skip Day,” a tradition that dates back decades, occurs every year on the Monday after prom, falling on May 15 this year.

For senior Erin Pilcher, the informal holiday represents a final opportunity to have fun with her friends before everyone leaves for college.

“As far as I know, Senior Skip Day has always been a thing in high school,” Pilcher said. “I remember my parents telling me about their senior skip day. It’s a fun day for all the seniors to try to live out their last few weeks of high school until we all go off to college and have to be super serious again.”

Pilcher estimated that about 65-70 percent of seniors participated in Senior Skip Day, and AP English Literature teacher Ms. Alter agreed, saying that 50-60 percent of her seniors were absent from class.

Senior skip day is not the same for every senior – while most spend the day after prom in Houston casually celebrating with their friend groups, many make the day more of an event and go to the beach.

Pilcher spent the day at a pool party with her friends since they weren’t able to rent a beach house large enough to accommodate her group.

“Our original plan was to go to Galveston since that’s a Houston tradition, but since that didn’t work out, we ended up going to a friend’s house,” Pilcher said.

Senior Celeste Mackin and her friends spent the day in Galveston, driving up Sunday afternoon and then waking up at 5:45 a.m. to watch the sunrise on the beach.

“Senior Skip Day is not an official thing, you basically just go with your friend group, but a lot of friend groups go,” Mackin said. “Our group spent the morning at home with our moms, just recovering from prom and celebrating Mother’s Day. We had a sunrise picnic at the beach and then went swimming.”

While the event is not officially school-sanctioned, most teachers are aware of the long-standing tradition, according to Mackin.

“Most of the teachers didn’t say anything about it,” Mackin said. “I think every teacher was kind of just like, ‘be careful, don’t be stupid,’ and if you’re not here they know why.”

Most seniors aren’t worried about missing school work since AP testing is over and many are exempt from finals. Pilcher’s English teacher even planned their class’ schedule around their event, moving Monday’s work to Tuesday. The event didn’t interfere with Alter’s class either since she normally structures the end of senior year to have less work.

“The way that I’ve typically run my senior-end of-year is by giving a very flexible project in order to accommodate for not only things like Senior Skip Day, but also all of the other activities that the seniors have going on,” Alter said. “I try to plan with the knowledge that the seniors have a whole lot going on in the spring.”