After last year’s hectic exam week, many students and teachers saw that a change was needed, so the faculty worked together to create a new plan for this year’s exam schedule.

Many students thought that last year’s exam schedule was too stressful and overwhelming.

“Last year’s schedule was seemingly the worst possible outcome as far as exams were concerned,” senior Jack McClain said. “Instead of a dedicated exam week, we had exams on top of projects, tests and regular homework.”

When the faculty saw how many issues there were with last year’s schedule, they knew they needed to change the schedule, so they came up with several different ideas and came to settle on two assessment weeks.

“The Upper School department chairs created three schedules for end of semester assessments and shared them with the entire faculty,” Head of Upper School Matthew Peer said. “Each teacher in the school had the opportunity to discuss their thoughts on the three proposals or come up with an alternative idea. Then the Department Chairs met and the consensus was the schedule below was in the best interests of the students.”

Many believe that the flexibility of this schedule will be helpful for both students and teachers.

“Having flexibility at the end of the fall semester to give projects, rather than a long AP exam is better for English because right now, my students aren’t ready to take a full AP exam,” English teacher Jennifer Sikes said. “They still need more weeks, if not another month, to be ready to even practice an AP exam, so I like the flexibility that this exam schedule gives.”

Many wish for a traditional exam week like there was two years ago.

“Teachers can still give the same amount of homework through the “exam week,” which I don’t really think that it is an exam week,” senior Mary Harbin Gilbert said. “I liked when we came in in the morning, take the exam and then leave, so we can study for the other exams.”

The new schedule was created to allow students and teachers to optimize class time through the entire first semester.

“At the end of the day, we’re just trying to come up with a way that will allow people to keep learning and make the best use of time all the way up to break,” History Department Chair Jonathan Wagshul said.

The exam schedule is as follows:

Monday/Tuesday (12/04-12/05)-English

Wednesday/Thursday (12/06-12/07)-Math

Friday/Monday (12/08-12/11)-Language

Tuesday/Wednesday (12/12-12/13)-Science
Thursday/Friday (12/14-12/15)-History