By Kaaviya Sambasivam, Staff Writer
A moon of relief may have eclipsed many students once AP testing ended earlier this month. However, students will have one final round of exams before summer break begins June 12.
The week following Memorial Day will be operated on a regular schedule, with the exception of Friday the 29th, when seniors in yearlong classes will be pulled.
For seniors, exams will take place between Friday, May 29, and Friday, June 5. For everyone else, exam week will begin Monday, June 1, and end on Friday, June 12. Makeups will take place on Friday, June 5 (seniors only), the afternoon of Thursday, June 11, and Friday, June 12.
The reason for the separate senior schedule has to do with the fact that graduation day falls right in the middle of exam week (Saturday, June 6) because of the five snow days added to the calendar.
Tales of teachers “not taking attendance’ and exempting students from schoolwork typically begin to float around during this time of year.
“That culture of students only showing up when they have exams and then deciding afterwards that they can go home is not the best,” said Amybith Harlee, RJR’s testing director and curriculum coordinator.
For exemptions, attendance is counted for seniors until May 27, and this is based off the student’s attendance and grades from this year. Senior exemptions are only applicable to teacher-made exams. The exemption policies for most classes are:
- Grade of A and no more than five absences
- Grade of B and no more than three absences
- Grade of C and no absences.
“For anyone that’s not a senior, especially athletes, attendance gets counted until the 12th, and that can affect athletic participation in August,” Harlee said. “So if you skip out a bunch during exams, you may not get to play in your first football game.”
According to district policies, exam days will be treated just as any other day of the school year.
This raises another question: What’s up with the administrative F policy? In the past, any student with six or more absences for a class could fail for that quarter unless a waiver was filled out explaining the reason for the unexcused absences.
The answer is that once exams start, the policy will not remain fully intact.
“This is where it gets tricky,” Harlee explained. “A kid who has already taken exams can’t fail their class with an administrative F. That’s more in place during the year to encourage students to participate.”
Students who miss class are responsible for any work they miss. If a student is going to be absent, they should consult with teacher(s) about any makeup work.
Many students claim to grow used to the “hectic” schedule during exam week, while others may have more difficulty balancing the back-to-back exams. Senior Irene Bantigue recently relocated from Birmingham, England, and is learning how to adjust to the American public testing style.
“My exams in the UK would start in June. I’d start studying in February. I’d have to prepare that much! Here, it’s a lot different,” Bantigue said. “You know how we’ve got multiple choice here? All of the exams (in England) require you to just write. You have a certain time frame. Even for mathematics. There’s no multiple choice for anything.”
Full-time Career Center student Vinish Kumar talked about figuring out a way to keep track of his exam week schedule: “I have like three different calendars to keep track of everything. It’s definitely complicated, but still manageable. I think that a way they could make it easier (at the Career Center) would be by having proctors that aren’t teachers.”
During spring exam week, each day will be broken up into two parts. The first chunk of each day (8:55 to 1:35) will include students’ exams and lunch period. The rest of the day (1:40 to 3:40) will be used for review sessions.
“The other piece that is a little different this year is that often on B days we will have A-day reviews in the afternoon (or vice versa),” Harlee said.
The purpose of scheduling reviews in this manner had to do with matching the Career Center’s schedule and avoiding large gaps between the review session for a class and the actual test day.
Any students with concerns should be sure to have them edified by their teachers.
“Students really need to listen to their teachers about when their exams are going to be, because it’s so complicated. We can’t just hand it out and expect them to know when to take what exam. It’s really complex,” Harlee said with a laugh.