History Main / ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow

** At the end of ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', Ness's sister Tracy says that she'll help Ness with the homework that he missed while off on his adventure. Also, when calling Ness's mom, she will occasionally remark that one of his teachers stopped by, and that she covered for him.

* In ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'' most of the characters are in school and some in boarding school but the only time we see anyone in class is during the school holidays. The sister series ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' shows main hero Touma occasionally getting in trouble for missing so many days of school while he's off adventuring, and there are a number of scenes of him in class or participating in school activities. Accelerator is mentioned to be "enrolled" in a school but this is mostly a cover for his activities in Academy City's "dark side". Some other school-aged characters simply ignore school because they're too busy working (usually, again, for Academy City's "dark side"), and Index doesn't go because she entered the city illegally and has no money to pay for it regardless.

* Marika in ''LightNovel/BodaciousSpacePirates'' is explicitly shown to be attending school while captaining the ''Bentenmaru'', although her grades are suffering.

* Sousuke from ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' often misses school for days at a time thanks to missions, which naturally does not help his [[BookDumb worryingly low GPA]]. It doesn't bother him at first, since being a student is merely part of his cover, so the fact that he starts refusing orders to reconvene to Merida after a mission in order to catch an exam becomes a major indicator that he's BecomingTheMask. [[spoiler:It's also pointed out in the penultimate volume that both Sousuke and Kaname will not only have to make up for the entire third year they missed, but also repeat their ''second'' year because they went AWOL before either of them could meet minimum attendance requirements.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Riordanverse}}:

* Four of the five books in ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' take place over summer break, with the third one taking place over winter break. Of those, the first two take place just after the end of the school year with some overlap, and the fourth takes place near the end of summer, with the first chapter taking place at Percy's high school orientation. Justified, as the series takes place at a summer camp, so Percy simply doesn't do demigod things during the school year (likely at the behest of his mother). That said, there are some campers, including Percy's best friend (and later {{Love Interest|s}}) Annabeth, who stay at camp year round due to bad (mortal) family lives, high risk of attracting monsters, or other reasons -- Percy just isn't one of them.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
** Trainers leave for one year, in the ''Manga/TheElectricTaleOfPikachu'' manga series. Ash is in a hurry to finish his journey for this reason.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': Though Anne Boonchuy has attended school prior to being transported to Amphibia, she has yet to be seen going back to school after returning to Earth in S3.

** Averted in ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet''. The PlayerCharacter is a student at the region's AcademyOfAdventure, and is participating in an independent study program that encourages them to roam the region and find themselves. However, you're still heavily encouraged to return for classes on occasion and some sidequests require you to progress in them first. The region's evil team is a gang of delinquents who are in danger of being expelled over their refusal to attend class at all. Though there's a small subversion in that the academy accepts people of all ages enrolling into classes of their choice, so it seems to be more of a college and less of compulsory school.

** Averted in ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet''. The PlayerCharacter is a student at the region's AcademyOfAdventure, and is participating in an independent study program that encourages them to roam the region and find themselves. However, you're still heavily encouraged to return for classes on occasion and some sidequests require you to progress in them first. The region's evil team is a gang of delinquents who are in danger of being expelled over their refusal to attend class at all.

* In the Part 3 (Stardust Crusaders) of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', Jotaro and Kakyoin are both 17-years-old students and are explicitly shown going to school in the beginning, however it seems to not stop them for going on a [[RoadTripPlot really long travel]] from Japan to Egypt to defeat a vampire and his horde. Somewhat justified with Jotaro since his mom's life is at stake and he's [[JapaneseDelinquents sort of a delinquent]], but more jarring with Kakyoin who, judging by [[spoiler: his dying thoughts]], didn't even warn his parents about going to Egypt!
** In ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind Golden Wind]]'', Giorno is shown to be living at a boarding school early in the part. The second he and Bruno's gang depart to look for Polpo's treasure, it's never brought up again. Granted, the whole part only takes place over the course of one week, but that would still be one heck of a truancy.

* At the end of ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', Ness's sister Tracy says that she'll help Ness with the homework that he missed while off on his adventure. Also, when calling Ness's mom, she will occasionally remark that one of his teachers stopped by, and that she covered for him.

* In ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'', one NPC asks Ninten: "What happened to school? You have school, don't you?"

-->'''Bart:''' Don't you have work?

* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Maximum Homerdrive", where Bart joins Homer on a cross country road trip.
-->'''Homer:''' Shouldn't you be in school right now?
-->'''Bart:''' Shouldn't you be at work right now?

[[folder:Film]]
* The Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse's [[Characters/MCUSpiderMan Peter Parker]], natch. In ''[[Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar Civil War]]'', he tells Tony that he can't go to Germany to fight Captain America because he has homework. By ''[[Film/SpiderManHomecoming Homecoming]]'', he does all his Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man stuff outside of class time, using the guise of the "Stark Internship" to keep Aunt May off his back (although he does initially leave his academic decathlon in order to keep doing Spider-Man things, later rejoining when the two coincide). And when he ditches his field trip in ''[[Film/AvengersInfinityWar Infinity War]]'' to help Iron Man and Doctor Strange, he has bigger things to worry about than his teacher marking him absent. Trailers for ''[[Film/SpiderManFarFromHome Far From Home]]'' imply that he attempts to invert this trope, giving up being Spider-Man while on a summer trip in Europe, until [[Characters/SHIELDDirectors Nick Fury]] and [[Characters/SpiderManCentralRoguesGallery Mysterio]] start to shake things up.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'' never shows and very rarely mentions that Cricket, Tilly and Remy attend school, with the community center serving as a stand-in. WordOfGod says that the show takes place on weeknights, weekends or summer break, since they felt as though childhood really is encompassed ''outside of school''. One episode even mentions a random family Tilly encounters has their children home-schooled.

** Averted in ''[[Anime/DigimonAdventure Adventure]]'', as it takes place during summer vacation on top of YearInsideHourOutside being in full effect, allowing the entire series to take place over the course of a week or two in August.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', Marty [=McFly=] is only seen at school towards the beginning. First being chastised by [[DeanBitterman Principal Strickland]] for arriving late and being an alleged slacker, and afterwards, being rejected from his school's Battle of the Bands competition. It's somewhat justified by him spending most of all three movies in different time periods, but that doesn't explain why nobody else in 1955 is suspicious that an oddly-dressed teenager is not in school during school hours. He does go to school at least once to try to get his parents together, and when he finds George after convincing him to ask Loraine to the dance, Marty asks why he wasn't at school that day. And he likely just stayed hiding at Doc Brown's home during most of the other school hours, since Doc, upon being convinced Marty was from the future, told him not to go out and talk to others to avoid making drastic changes in time.

* In ''WesternAnimation/LoliRock'', when Iris asks Aunt Ellen to let Talia and Auriana stay in their home, she comes up with the lie that they're exchange students, which Ellen buys. And despite being of schooling age, none of the girls are shown to be attending school. [[spoiler:Though with TheReveal of Ellen's true identity in Season 2, it could be that she already knows who they really are and is playing along to keep her true heritage a secret from Iris.]]

* In ''Manga/InuYasha'' Kagome has her family make up a series of unlikely illnesses for her to be suffering from, so that she can spend her time in feudal Japan. Few people seem to question this state of affairs. In a WhatAnIdiot example at one point in the manga, one of Kagome's schoolmates ''sees'' her come out of the Bone Eater's Well just as her grandfather was covering up for her. Still he goes up to her casually and ''asks her if she's feeling better from her disease''. Given that this is Creator/RumikoTakahashi, this is [[RuleOfFunny probably intentional]].

* The Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse's [[Franchise/SpiderMan Peter Parker]], natch. In ''[[Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar Civil War]]'', he tells Tony that he can't go to Germany to fight Captain America because he has homework. By ''[[Film/SpiderManHomecoming Homecoming]]'', he does all his Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man stuff outside of class time, using the guise of the "Stark Internship" to keep Aunt May off his back (although he does initially leave his academic decathlon in order to keep doing Spider-Man things, later rejoining when the two coincide). And when he ditches his field trip in ''[[Film/AvengersInfinityWar Infinity War]]'' to help Iron Man and Doctor Strange, he has bigger things to worry about than his teacher marking him absent. Trailers for ''[[Film/SpiderManFarFromHome Far From Home]]'' imply that he attempts to invert this trope, giving up being Spider-Man while on a summer trip in Europe, until [[Characters/ShieldDirectors Nick Fury]] and [[Characters/SpiderManCentralRoguesGallery Mysterio]] start to shake things up.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', Marty [=McFly=] is only seen at school towards the beginning. First being chastised by [[SadistTeacher Principal Strickland]] for arriving late and being an alleged slacker, and afterwards, being rejected from his school's Battle of the Bands competition. It's somewhat justified by him spending most of all three movies in different time periods, but that doesn't explain why nobody else in 1955 is suspicious that an oddly-dressed teenager is not in school during school hours. He does go to school at least once to try to get his parents together, and when he finds George after convincing him to ask Loraine to the dance, Marty asks why he wasn't at school that day. And he likely just stayed hiding at Doc Brown's home during most of the other school hours, since Doc, upon being convinced Marty was from the future, told him not to go out and talk to others to avoid making drastic changes in time.

* Oddly, sometimes appears in ''Literature/HarryPotter'', despite the series taking place ''at'' a school. Mentions of what Harry's actual classes entailed got fewer and fewer as the series went on. [[spoiler: Then the PowerTrio simply drop out of school to go on the quest to render Voldemort vulnerable.]] Although, Hermione stays responsible by [[spoiler: eventually going back to school to finish her 7th year, per WordOfGod. Even though it was probably the two boys that could've used it the most]]. In fairness, in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows the last book]], only Ron was the only one who should have been at school. Harry was public enemy number one to the Voldemort controlled government and would not have been able to attend while Hermione was a Muggle-born and was forbidden from attending (or really simply existing as per the government).

* In the ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' cartoon, nobody there goes to school. Alright, they could all have graduated as most are in their late teenage years, but in a flashback where they are shown in their uniforms, they all look about twelve or so. Are there no schools in the future?
** We are told in the original comics that 14 year olds are considered adult by at least some planets in that future with the implication that this is common.
** Also, many early Legion comics featured "slice of life" panels before the main story started, some of which showed Legion members either attending school or having tutors teach them while in their downtime.

* Played straight with ''VideoGame/Persona1'' and ''[[VideoGame/Persona2 2]]'' where school is completely irrelevant to the party, especially Eternal Punishment where the party mostly consists of mostly adults. {{Averted|Trope}} with ''[[VideoGame/Persona3 3]]'', ''[[VideoGame/Persona4 4]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/Persona5 5]]'' as the party still attends high school while going through a supernatural adventure.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{TeenTitans|2003}}'' cartoon, this applies to pretty much every teen hero, and it's only made more noticeable when you realize that the H.I.V.E. Five were actively enrolled in school, albeit [[AcademyOfEvil one for super-powered villains]]. A pass could be made for ComicBook/{{Raven}} and most of the others, as they have odd powers and would likely not be welcome in a public school environment, with ComicBook/{{Cyborg}} mentioning at one point that he couldn't finish high school because of the event that made him into a cyborg. But what about Robin or Speedy?
* Largely averted in ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', where school attendance forms part of the plot of some episodes such as Miss Martian's and Superboy's first day at school, or Artemis being threatened with the curtailment of her "extracurriculars" if she doesn't do well in class. Subtly lampshaded in one episode, when the battleground of the week turns out to be the gym at Robin's school. (Apparently, Robin goes to school.)

-->'''Numbuh Four:''' And you're just in time for and after-school special butt-kicking, toilet-face!

* Likewise in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Buffy's Slayer activities lead to her either missing class, falling asleep in class, or just not having time to study. She does scrape through into college, but eventually has to drop out when real life issues like caring for her little sister and working for a living are also added to her problems.

** [[LightNovel/PocketMonstersTheAnimation A rare and little known novelization]] released early in [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries the anime]]'s life [[AllThereInTheManual hand-waves this]]. After children in the Pokémon world finish schooling at the age of ten, they become legal adults who are free to leave to become full-time trainers, or do whatever else they want, an aspect that appears to remain canon if the ''Sun and Moon'' seasons of the anime are any indication.

* ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'' never shows and very rarely mentions that Cricket, Tilly and Remy attend school, with the community center serving as a stand-in. WordOfGod says that the show takes place on weeknights, weekends or summer break, since they felt as though childhood really is encompassed ''outside of school''.