Finals Before Broken

After not enough debate, my school has decided to move final exams to the end of December, before the winter break. However, unlike many schools in our area, we are not altering the start or end of our school year. Instead, our semesters will be uneven. The second semester, starting in January, will be two weeks longer than first semester.

I am concerned that we have not fully explored the ramifications of this decision.

I fully endorse that school breaks should be homework free. They should be real breaks. That is clearly why so many members of our community supported this change. However, as I have written before if the problem is studying for finals over break, the answer is not to change the timing of finals, but the nature of finals. Finals are the issue, moving them doesn’t change the problem.

Nonetheless, here we are. We are going down this path and our map is incomplete. I have some concerns and questions about what will happen at the end of December.

Since the first semester will be two weeks shorter than in past years, students will have less time to master the content and become proficient in the skills. The end of the semester assessment will catch them earlier than it has in the past, meaning their grades may be lower.

In addition, the tests themselves may be different. I have already heard talk about changing the nature of first semester tests so that they are easier to grade. Teachers don’t want work over winter break either. While some areas already give a great deal of objective, multiple choice, and scantron based tests, we may see more of this. So, instead of a written exam allowing students to actively demonstrate their understanding, we may see more tests that are quicker and easier to grade, but more difficult for students.

Another option may be that we’ll see more finals due before the actual finals week. This has been happening more and more with our old calendar. This gives students more stress and work and teachers more time to grade. Currently, many students have final “projects” that must be turned in as early as two weeks before the scheduled exam date. I am willing to bet we’ll see many more of these.

Of course, with almost two additional weeks in second semester, we might see more content being taught after winter break. This might mean that second-semester finals are longer and include more material. Instead of an even split between semesters, first semester exams might be easier on teachers and harder on students and second-semester exams might just include more material.

The main reason for this shift was that teachers gave homework over break. Some students also used winter break as a time to get ready for finals and start studying. I have not seen this happen often. My experience is that students do very little or no work over the holiday. Finals used to be scheduled the third week of January, and I have not seen many students work on them before January. While I have seen students deal with homework over break, the solution is one that Lane Tech High School in Chicago recently implemented: make a rule that there is no homework over break!

If students are starting to study for tests over winter break, which used to begin four weeks before the start of the testing week, won’t they do this regardless of the calendar? Finals are now the third week of December. Four weeks before that is Thanksgiving! If students are stressed about finals and homework over winter break, that stress will now move to Thanksgiving, a shorter time off from school.

Finals are scheduled as three periods a day for three days. Each test is seventy-five minutes with a seventy-five-minute break between tests. Most students only come to school for one or two tests a day. The Friday is a day when students do not attend. I’ll bet that airline tickets to nice locations are cheaper if one leaves before the crowded winter break rush. They are probably even cheaper the earlier one leaves. What will we do with the students whose parents decide to pull them out of all or part of finals week to get out of town more quickly and less expensively? Will we have more students missing final exams with this calendar?

Is the rest of the world changing for finals? We will still have sports events, holidays, and everything that comes at the end of December. The school will move our events. We are moving one of the largest, our school charity drive to just before Thanksgiving! However, the outside world’s calendar will remain the same. For example, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah will end exactly one week before finals.

So we may have lower grades, harder tests, stress over Thanksgiving, more absences (and thus even more stress) and the regular stressors that come with this time of year.

Can we talk about finals?