And I've also tried dumping all of the spaces I added to mimic your suggestion more closely:

{SKIPIF{={IF{MERGEFIELD attendance_comments}= "" 0 1}+{IF{MERGEFIELD assignment_comments}= "" 0 1}+{IF{MERGEFIELD grading_comments}= "" 0 1}+{IF{MERGEFIELD submit_grades_comments}= "" 0 1}+{IF{MERGEFIELD report_comments}= "" 0 1}+{IF{MERGEFIELD parent_access_comments}= "" 0 1}+{IF{MERGEFIELD Please_share_any_additional_feature_req}= "" 0 1}}= 0}