The Senior Slide, formally known as Senioritis Slideus, is a mental disease that affects seniors all around the world. Originating in the 1970s, the Slide was first discovered in a New York high school. Out of a class of twenty-three seniors, nine of them began to exhibit the first signs of this illness. The nine had all been bright students, well-disciplined too, but when the year started, their attitude changed. They became distracted, falling asleep in class and losing motivation to continue their studies. Their assignments were done sloppily, if even finished. Their marks on exams, which had been so close to perfect, now were mediocre at best.

Then, a month into the year, the first senior dropped out. Then a second. Immediately, seniors started dropping like flies, with only four of the originally infected returning after winter break. However, by then, they had already infected the rest of their class, but strangely not any of the freshman, sophomores, or juniors. Every senior now exhibited these symptoms, and teachers were growing extremely worried. The faculty imposed a quarantine on the seniors. Seniors were locked in the school, kept separate from other students, and forced to do work, but this did nothing. Seniors grew even more depressed, and their work suffered.

Soon enough, the CDC involved themselves. After running several studies, it was determined that this was a serious illness, and it was popping up all over the nation. The CDC tried to impose a mask mandate, but it did nothing to limit the spread among seniors. There was nothing that could stop the spread.

Over the next decade, the cases continued to rise, springing up in schools all over the world. Seniors, who had toiled through years of school, were giving up. They skipped school, choosing to play in the streets instead. They neglected their assignments, finding them to be tiresome and irrelevant. Instead of giving education their all, they realized that there was more to life than school.

Now, after several decades, the CDC has renewed the study of Senioritis Slideus, widely due to the severity of the illness and the growing number of cases here at Xavier High School. Supported by a serious and in-depth poll of six seniors, all of whom claimed to be affected by the disease, the Slide seems to be even more contagious than Covid.

Following the hectic last few years, during which a significant amount of class time was online, seniors are now even less motivated than normal. By being imprisoned in their homes and forced to endure school, their energy is at an all-time low. Even with school being in-person again, they cannot focus nor can they find the drive to do their work. The slide has become too dangerous.

All throughout Xavier, seniors are losing focus. They are letting their grades drop and are skipping assignments. Soon, with college acceptances rolling out, things will reach a critical point where seniors completely go into lockdown mode, one that they impose on themselves. With such a grave danger coming ever nearer, the CDC, in accordance with Xavier faculty, has announced new measures to protect students at Xavier from themselves. Three masks must now be worn at all times, even when eating, and the use of computers is prohibited. Students may only use pen and paper for notes, and all assignments must be neatly written in cursive. JUG is now mandatory so that students can practice restraint and ensure that they have the discipline needed to resist the Slide. Additionally, all senior privileges have been canceled, including the seniors’ early end to the school year. It is the hope of the CDC that through such measures seniors will be able to overcome the Senior Slide. However, in the unfortunate case such precautions are ineffective, the CDC is also developing a vaccine. The vaccine is currently being tested on chimpanzees and the results are promising, as the monkeys are no longer sitting around eating bananas, but rather scoring exceptionally well on calculus and physics tests.

While it is extremely important that seniors no longer suffer from the dreaded Senior Slide, some members of the CDC are pushing for more research into the intellectual growth of the apes who have taken the vaccine. They believe that the vaccine will cure the Slide, admittedly their proposal is that the vaccine will be used to replace seniors with intelligent monkeys. However, the monkeys are also exhibiting signs of extreme depression, but it is undetermined if it is a product of the vaccine, the workload, or something else entirely. Therefore, for the sake of the monkeys, not just for the seniors, the Senior Slide must be taken seriously.