The most stressful time in a high school student’s academic career is arguably finals. An entire semester grade can depend on a 90-minute test. However, arguably, first-semester finals are far worse because of one main problem: winter break.
Libertyville High School is one of the few high schools in the area that has placed their first-semester finals after a two-week long break. The majority of students feel strongly about this topic because they feel this two-week break affects how successful they are on exams.
Alex Kratcoski, a senior and a three-sport athlete at LHS, believes that finals should be before break.
“I think it’s just not something you have to stress over break, and the two-week break, I don’t even do any studying. They say the two-week gap is a time to study when it’s just a time for me to forget,” said Kratcoski.
Arooj Ahmad, also a senior at LHS, argues that “Finals should be before break because it enables students to utilize the faculty of short-term memory to succeed on tests that cover information that has just been learned. This discipline has effectively dissolved by the end of break where by nature of the ‘break,’ people lose sense of scholastic priorities,” said Ahmad.
Having finals before break would come with some consequences, though. According to the Chicago Tribune, For instance, days that are normally non-attendance days (Columbus day,Veterans day, etc. ,we would have to attend on those days to “balance the schedule.”Also to balance the schedule, District 128 would have to start school much earlier than normal. The projected start date would be around August 4th.
When students were told that they wouldn’t have these days off, they were shocked but they would still want finals before break despite the inconvenience.
Grant Dean, senior at LHS, said that “That’s crazy, but it’s worth it.” In the end, for most students, having to attend school on those days outweighs the stress of having finals after break.
“ In the last two years especially, we have been having snow days, which means the teachers cram in more information,” according to Dean.
Cramming in information has been a common complaint about finals after break. Many students believe that this defeats the purpose of learning by putting an overload of information at students. Kratcoski understands this issue of “cramming in information” because “it’s only a semester long and they [the teachers] have to fit everything in. I just wish they would plan better,” said Kratcoski.
Rewriting the school schedule is also an option to be considered. According to the Daily Princetonian, “the academic calendar is determined three years in advance and follows certain rules according to the Office of the Registrar.”
