This year is the first year since 2017 Harwood has done midterms and finals as a full school. We checked in with the students to see how it went for them.
While there were both positives and negatives from the return of midterms, the reaction from the students was mostly positive.
At the start of the year, the Harwood administration had the goal of reintroducing an “official midterm/finals week.”
As some courses decided to bring back midterms and finals for their classes, it started to get stressful for the students and teachers without having extra time or a designated day for the stress of the big midterm/final. In response to this, the administration decided to make a schedule to manage stress and give more time to the teachers to have a bigger exam that can thoroughly cover what they want it to cover.
The goal of the schedule was to give the students more time to deal with the stress of the midterms so they could go home and relax, or study to get ready for the next day. It also helped the teachers have more time to grade tests or help students prepare for exams.
While some students liked midterms and some didn’t, one opinion was unanimous: “I really like the schedule, the schedule was great!” sophomore Deacon Mittler said. Everyone talked to liked having time after school to relax or study; most people relaxed or hung out with friends but liked the option to have a while after school to get ready for the rest of the day “without the schedule or even with three blocks a day, it would’ve been more stressful,” says Mittler.
“Midterm prep ELO’s would be nice… maybe a study week or a prep week.” Ada Russel says. Multiple other people had similar ideas “Maybe one class before to let you prepare,” said Sofia Bay.
“Make a good reference sheet..some teachers will look at them,” says Russel. Many students had some advice for next year. Deacon shared that some teachers provide a study guide and following that especially helped him. Kyle Leighty had similar advice, “Know what you’re talking about… ask your teacher for practice problems.”
Most public American high schools do some sort of final exam or project to measure student ability and performance. Nearly 100% of colleges do a final exam or a midterm, and almost all institutions reserve at least one dedicated finals week. Roughly 65% of Harwood students go to college after high school. Reintroducing the Midterm and Final schedule is helping the students of Harwood prepare for college.
“Overall I think it was good… If we did it again I’d be happy” says Deacon Mittler.
