Here at Fargo North High, we pride ourselves on our academics and education. This pride is justified by our standardized test scores and ACT/ SAT scores being far above average for a typical high school. This is achieved through hard work, tight discipline, and teachers who show care and effort in a profession they genuinely enjoy. Part of that hard work is the finals that teachers have prepared in the past, and the studying and stress that is required to pass. Recently, the board of administrators in the Fargo Public Schools system is saying that they have a better way to go about finals for every school in the district. This is good news for some, but some teachers aren’t so happy.
This new finals system gives students two days instead of three to finish as many as eight finals. This gives some students an extra day to review that would normally be used as a test day. While maintaining good use of their time, this is further supported by a new rule change in the system. Teachers no longer need to have a final for their class. This reinforces the idea that this will not cause too much extra stress for students because now during the finals part of the year. They could potentially not have a single final to study for, but this is highly unlikely. This is not the only reason these changes were made though.
According to Mark Blanshan, one of the assistant principals, the big reason for the change was the large amount of time during the third day some students would be stuck at school due to the bus schedule. Because a lot of students have their period 8 off, they would normally be able to go home at 10:00, but if they have to ride the bus, they would have to wait at school for almost six hours with nothing to do. This seems to be a big reason, but is not the only one.
Teachers do not seem to be in full support of this idea, they think it will cause extra stress on the students and negatively affect their mental health and/or test scores.
“I think we’re gonna see stress levels rise, finals are already stressful, but trying to do it in two days is hard on kids,” said Michelle Bertsch, a math teacher here at North.
This is the common opinion of teachers around the school. According to a few teachers, the administration asked the staff and educators of the school for their opinions on the finals schedule, and a large number of teachers voiced that they would like to either keep it the same, or get rid of finals altogether, but to the staff’s dismay, the administration ignored their opinions and continued to change the schedule anyway.
Rachel Consdorf, a chemistry teacher here, said, “The change wasn’t what I preferred.”
From a student’s perspective, this might not be that bad of a thing. The average student at North High is taking one AP class, the required core classes, and a few electives they thought would be fun. With the removal of the final requirement, this means that there might be two finals each day with a six class schedule. But for students who go above and beyond, with most of their classes being AP, this might be a problem.
All in all, for a lot of students, this change might not be that big of a deal. All that you need to do to ensure that you stay successful, is the right mindset, patience with studying, and time to make sure you review and study before the tests.