As our teachers, administrators and students head back to school, the stress of regrouping and catching up lands squarely on our students. Our proposal offers us an opportunity to come together as a community and show the students that we support THEM.
We suggest that the timing of final examinations be returned to its original schedule before winter break, and allow the exams to be used only to IMPROVE grades. This allows students who have performed to a high standard throughout the semester, resulting in a high end-of-term grade, to not be impacted by the strike. It also still allows those students who did not perform well in previous assessments an opportunity to improve their grades. In basic terms, we suggest the following:
If the score on the final exam is higher than the current grade-to-date, the final exam will be 20% of the semester grade.
If the final exam score is lower than the current grade-to-date, the final exam will be 0% of the semester grade.
Adopting this rule for the first semester would allow students to focus on those classes where they are not performing as well as they would like, thereby making their study time more efficient during a compressed schedule. Also, with the original exam schedule, transcripts for seniors would be available in a timely fashion for college applications. Of lesser importance, but still a benefit to the high school families, students would be able to truly relax over winter break and not worry about studying for final exams.
