Senior Privileges

In many high schools around the world, there are special privileges for seniors, also known as “senior privileges.” These privileges differ from school to school, with having the ability to eat off-campus being one that’s most well known. The American International School of Guangzhou does not allow students to eat off-campus and I was curious as to why not. 

I interviewed Mr. Timmerman, the high school principal, regarding his opinions and reasons as to why AISG does not allow students to eat off-campus. He stated that it isn’t because of seniors can’t be trusted but rather because Sodexo, as our primary food contractor, “wants to have sole, exclusive rights to provide lunch.” He mentioned that this is why community service groups are no longer allowed to sell food from KFC or other restaurants for fundraising because Sodexo doesn’t want “something that’s going to be a direct competitor.” Another reason Sodexo is our only provider is “to prevent food outbreaks,” in case students get sick from eating food outside of campus. 

When I asked him if he had previously worked in a school where there were senior privileges, he shared a story regarding a group of seniors that got into a car accident because they were rushing back to school in order to get to class on time. After the incident, the school stopped practicing these privileges. While these kinds of incidents rarely happen, it is clear that there is still a possibility for students to be harmed.

Along with safety concerns, Mr. Timmerman expressed that having a set of senior privileges may come in the way of AISG’s tight-knit community as “we’re all one high school and we’re all important and having too many senior privileges makes me kind of anxious because I want us to be all in this together, rather than seniors getting certain privileges that juniors don’t get.” If seniors are given sole privileges, it may elicit negative responses from other grades. To prevent this, the only senior privilege we have is the choice to purchase coffee.

When it comes to compromising and thinking of creative solutions, our principal said that some things are developmentally appropriate. One example is buying coffee which is only available to seniors, asking questions like “do we really want ninth-graders drinking coffee?” He states that he is a “firm believer that we need to empower students to make good choices. Soon, in 9 months, all the seniors are going to be off at college and you are going to have to make choices like drinking coffee or not.” 

All in all, while seniors at AISG don’t have a huge set of privileges like some others schools do, we do have a few such as the ability to buy coffee from the cafe and ordering food after school. The main objective of senior privileges is to give students exposure to the real world and here, at AISG, “we provide a safe environment to get a chance to learn how to make some of these decisions on (our) own.”