2 minute read
Opinion
In a school year defined by confusion, stress and inconsistency, the first semester finals schedule was yet another punch. The organization of finals was harmful to students and cannot be repeated.
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Late last summer, the USD 497 Board of Education decided to delay the start of school until September 8 to allow for preparation for online learning. With this change, the first semester was about two weeks shorter. It was not made clear to students before early December–five months after the initial scheduling decision was made–finals would be pushed to January. Later, everything was pushed back two more days, causing finals to also be split up by Martin Luther King Day.
On the surface, this may seem like a harmless change. High school students are going to take finals either way, does it really matter when?
As a student, it does. Especially now.
This schedule was simply not practical. Expecting students to recall class material after a three-week break is unfair and unrealistic. This left students with two options: stress and study over break, or wing it when it comes time for their tests.
Either way, this was problematic. Many students felt nervous and pressured to study, making their “break” just as stressful as school. Students who feel less motivated about school or have other priorities likely put the books away entirely during their break. Presumably, those students performed more poorly on their finals than they could have on a normal timeline.
Even if students managed to get
Schedule Comparision
Last year’s This year’s
finals break
through finals unscathed, starting second semester the next day was incredibly difficult. Many of my peers and I were exhausted after finals.
In several of my classes, we started taking notes on the first day. In those classes, group chats started blowing up: we were so collectively burned out that none of us had taken notes. This trend continued over the next couple days as we struggled to regain our motivation.
The schedule change put unnecessary stress on teachers as well, forcing them to simultaneously grade finals and begin their next set of classes.
From an overhead perspective, I can understand why this decision may have seemed necessary. If the semester would be shorter, just stick two more weeks on in January to give teachers enough time to cover the normal amount of content—an easy fix. However, this just did not work.
With the short notice, the majority of my teachers didn’t introduce new content in the extra two weeks of the semester. We had projects or assignments to work on, and finals to prepare for, but I did not observe the time being used for teaching more lessons. The semester could have ended in December and I would have learned the same amount of content.
On a larger scale, these changes added to the overwhelming frustration and confusion of this school year. During this time, teenagers are begging for consistency, clarity, organization and normalcy. As young people, we need some sense of expectations and structure. Nothing is as it should be. In this regard, the adults and leaders in our lives failed us once again.
story by MK Shultz design by Hannah De Guzman
