Is it true that in high school you get to skip class if you’re on the basketball team?

14 comments

1. [removed]

2. Yes but it’s not a free for all. Some sports team members (any team, not just basketball), are allowed to skip usually the last class of the day or an entire day if they have a game that day or have to travel to another town for a game.

   Skipping class sounds nice but they are given that days work in advance and still have to do the work. Skipping class doesn’t exempt them from class work.

3. Sometimes there are away games that they have to go to

4. It can happen if any sports team has to travel for games. It isn’t like you just get a holiday. You have to make up work and potentially take any quizzes or tests in advance.

   I was on a club team in high school and we had to sometimes take off part of the day on Friday to travel for competitions. Since the club was not part of the school it was just treated like any absence. Your parents had to send in a letter stating the reason for the absence and you had to make up any work in advance or soon afterward.

5. Not regularly. I was on the basketball team in high school and the only time I got to “skip” class for it was when we had a tournament or something but that was quite infrequent.

6. I’m a retired middle and high school teacher from the 8th largest school district in The USA. In my district this is false. If the student-athlete did not attend school the day of a game or event, that student is not allowed to compete that day. If the student-athlete does not maintain attendance in accordance with the district’s attendance policy they will be ineligible to participate in the sport.

   **One footnote.** I retired before Covid-19. I don’t think the rules changed post Covid in the district where I taught, but honestly, I can’t say with 100% surety.

7. When I played sports I high school this was much more common for underclassmen sports. For instance we would have a varsity team, a junior varsity team, and what is called a fresh/soph team where it’s only freshmen and sophomores. There are also usually boys and girls teams but not always playing at the same place on the same nights. This means on an away game we are travelling somewhere and then need time to play a minimum of 3 games and sometimes as many as 6 full games. For sports like soccer and basketball this times some time and planning.

   This typically meant that the fresh/soph teams played earliest and often left the school before the varsity team did for away games. While tournaments or things like CIF do happen it’s not as common. The fresh/soph boys and girls soccer teams would miss some classes for pretty much every away game. Varsity players usually wouldn’t miss much because their games are played later in the evening.

8. Others have covered this well, with the bit about leaving early for away games. I will say though there are less ethical schools that may actually allow skipping.

   Sometimes there are regulations about academic standards that high school players have to meet to qualify to play, like you can’t play if you are failing a class. Less scrupulous schools have been known to falsify academic records to cover for students skipping classes or failing tests. But it’s not really a formal thing, just coaches pressuring other teacher so cook the books for kids that were probably going to skip anyway. Maybe not super common, but it does happen occasionally. Hard to say how often because it’s under the table and evidence is anecdotal.

   It’s also probably more common in college than in high school because of the amount of money involved. When I was in college, I signed up for a class that I only knew after starting was a class to pad athlete grades. It was in a big lecture hall, attendance wasn’t taken, and all the assignments were done electronically. Apparently the entire basketball team was enrolled but we never saw them. Did see quite a few kids with multiple devices on test days though.

9. I played football and if an away game was far enough away we’d get dismissed early. That wasn’t a free day we’d have to make up the work. When I did robotics in highschool and we qualified for the World Championship tournament we were out for almost a week, but all if that work had to be made up. Ironically since I was doing robotics most of my teachers at that time only had me make up any quizzes or exams we did and not the homework.

10. If you are a part of any school event group (Sport, Cheerleading, Dance, Theater, Band, Choir, Academic Decathlon, Debate, etc) and your event/game occurs during a school day, or traveling to it requires you to leave before the school day has ended then you do get to skip the classes in conflict with getting to or participating in the event. But you do not get to skip a class at your own will.

11. Yes, but it is true for any school sport and the reason is not what you think. Typically, at my High School, because it was rural, the teams had to travel for some games that were a long distances away, even in the same conference. So the skipping of the last class was needed to for “travel time” to get to the other school. Beyond that, students were expected to attend classes.

12. As far as I remember it was only if they had a game. And even then often it was only the last few classes, if the game was far away (like over 2 hours). Even in college, at my college they used to have a member of the football team staff check to see if they were in class (although some would just walk out right after that guy left) unless it was the Friday before a game.

13. This can happen with any activity really. I was involved in the theater club in high school, we’d travel to the local elementary schools and give performances and we’d get to skip a couple of classes to do that. It was the same as skipping class because you were sick though – you’d still be responsible for any work you missed and whatever was learned in class you’d need to learn on your own. Also, at my school, if you were failing a particular class you weren’t allowed to skip it (you were actually kicked out of extracurriculars if you were failing a class).

14. Only if they need to travel to the game and need to leave to get there in time. You get those cleared with your teacher in advance and still have to get your assignments in.