Due to the large number of students who cut class, the administrative team—led by Principal Noreen Likins, assistant principal Anne-Marie Balzano, and Dean of Students Tom Jacoubowsky—decided to establish Saturday school with the support of the Instructional Council from the beginning of the school year.

Students with four cuts in a single subject must spend four hours on a Saturday morning working on educational activities. Failure to attend would result in a day of suspension the following week.

Likins and other administrators created Saturday school as a deterrent to students who liked to cut classes. Last year alone, 1,197 students had one or more cuts, and 31.3 percent of those students were seniors.

“Students who cut need more school, not less school,” Likins said. “This is intended to be a disincentive. It is the student who makes the choices that leads to cutting.”

School administrators will take turns supervising Saturday school in case any issues should arise. A teacher will be in the room with the students at all times.

“I already have four teachers that volunteered for this, so we won’t hire a separate teacher for Saturday school,” Likins said.

However, not all teachers are optimistic about the new additions to the attendance policy. French teacher Marcel Losier believes that the new policy is too lenient on students who decide to cut.

“I believe that cutting class is unacceptable,” he said. “I think that students should have to make up an hour for each cut.”

Some students are uncertain of the program’s effectiveness. “It won’t work because making students do stuff on a Saturday is quite juvenile,” senior Sam Wu said. “I’d rather take a day of suspension instead.”

The new policy, some argue, is counterintuitive. “The people who cut usually don’t even care about school,” sophomore Alex Esbar said. “They won’t come to Saturday school and they won’t mind the day of suspension because that means they won’t have any classes.”

The administration believes that Saturday school could help make students think twice about cutting and boost attendance.

“Hopefully, given the choice between attending their scheduled classes or getting up early on a Saturday to be here from 8 to 12, students will choose the former,” Balzano said. “It is a good first step in better addressing the issue of students cutting classes, since the contract and being dropped from the class was clearly not enough.”