by Emily Wemhoff

For this year’s winter finals, the schedule was changed from a Monday through Thursday to a Friday through Wednesday type schedule. The number of days of winter break was also shortened from 19 days to 13 days. According to principal of academic affairs Barbara McCormick, winter finals were moved because the administration looks at when other schools in the community are letting out and the amount of regulation days of school that STA needs to fulfill. Winter finals are always four days, according to McCormick.

“Really [the schedule] changed this year by coincidence,” McCormick said. “We study other schools in the area and then decide as an administration.”

Junior Mattie O’Boyle likes how the testing days are laid out, however she does not like how the first tests, English and foreign language, are on Friday.

“I like that we have the weekend before to study for our last tests,” O’Boyle said. “But the tests on Friday will be hard to study for the night before.”

When asked if she could change one thing about finals, junior Meredith Latenser would change the fact that there is an entire weekend in between testing days.

“I’m just going to watch Duck Dynasty the whole weekend anyway so I would rather the tests be Monday through Thursday,” Latenser said. “I don’t want to study until Sunday.”

According to McCormick, there has been a testing committee each year since she has arrived that helps decide how the finals schedule will be laid out. The school leadership team, which has teachers from each department, also helps with laying out the schedule.

“The [leadership team] had lots of discussion beforehand,” McCormick said. “[Administration] listens to student feedback and teachers. We look at ways to maximize student integrity for the tests. We used to have all massive testing on the gym floor, then we found that we only need to use it depending on the tests given or what the teacher chooses to do. We now have more space and facilities and we are able to manage the locations differently.”

McCormick said that for the past few years, finals schedules have changed because “we have never found the perfect fit.” She says that last spring, the school leadership team finally came to a consensus that they had found an effective schedule.

“We have a rotation for each of the disciplines,” McCormick said. “The discipline that is first on the schedule this time might be last on the schedule next time. We want to give different departments the opportunity to have their tests first.”

This means that math and social studies might be on separate days this semester, but next semester they could be on the same day.

According to McCormick, teachers might alter the types of tests that they give depending on where they are in the schedule.

“If they are early on in the rotation, they might be more likely to give essay tests,” McCormick said. “If [other tests given] are later in the week and the teachers don’t have as much time to grade, maybe they would give multiple choice tests.”

As for the future, the testing committee is defunct for now. McCormick said that the “committee has done its task and hopefully all we worry about now is the rotation schedule.”

“The rotations of disciplines will change, but the number of days students test will not change,” McCormick said. “We look at how each department wants to assess the students and then decide the location of the tests.”