If you missed the casual schedule and days off from school that used to come with final exams, you were not alone, but you are among mixed company.

Teachers, administrators, and students all dealt with the new end-of-semester policy that the Board of Education instituted for the first time this year, and the results seem to have left people with a mixed set of feelings.

As expected, many students feel a sense of dissatisfaction. Tessa Schwartz, an eleventh grader, says, “We use to be able to get off from school or stay at school only a short time if there weren’t exams for certain periods. I miss that system.”

Another student Dawit Enyew, a twelfth grader, also expresses displeasure with the new schedule. He says, “I hate it. We have to stay at school longer because finals are gone.”
English teacher Ms. Dana Birdin feels similar about not having final exams. Ms. Birdin says, “It’s unfortunate that they didn’t get input from teachers before getting rid of final exams. It’s a disservice to the students that won’t know how to study properly for final exams when they reach college and university.”

Another teacher who shared similar a sentiment is biology and chemistry teacher Ms. Stevens, who responds,

“It’s terrible. The new system is actually harming the students. There is no actual finality to a unit because teachers have to rush with parts of the curriculum. The rushed lessons don’t always stick with the students.”

Final exams used to be highly anticipated as the schedule approached the end of each semester. However, the new schedule, which calls for Required Quarterly Assessments (RQA) instead of end-of-semester exams, left many longing for the days of two-hour exams, late starts for those who had no morning exam, and early exits for those who had no second exam on a given day.

Washington Post reporter Donna St. George wrote about the termination of midterm and final exams in Montgomery County, Maryland’s largest school system after the decision was made in September 2015. According to George’s article, Montgomery County scrapped the practice of final exams “…ending a longtime practice that lost support amid a growing national concern about too much student testing and the toll it takes on instructional time.”

George also reported that Montgomery County’s Board of Education voted unanimously…to eliminate the two-hour, semester-end exams and replace them with shorter assessments taken during the quarter that could take different forms: tests, essays, portfolios and projects.”

George explained that the Board sees the new system as a way for teachers to have more time for explaining lessons rather than rushing at the end of a semester for an exam that doesn’t showcase a student’s full potential.

As George noted in her piece, Montgomery County isn’t the only local school system changing, as Virginia’s Loudoun County also took away their semester exams for a system that will prepare students for the real world. Ms. George also explains that Loudoun County Virginia “…recently dropped a requirement that teachers must give midterms and finals. The move was part of a focus on more project-based learning, which many say better prepares students for the real world outside the classroom.”
This new change attracted the attention of college and university professors in other states. George quotes Deborah Stipek, a professor and former dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. According to George, Stipek said she “has seen huge variability among school district practices with final exams and said Montgomery’s change could provide teachers with more timely information for improving instruction and identifying student needs.”

While a good portion of students miss finals, others have mixed feelings concerning the new schedule, with some missing the relaxed schedule of exam week and others benefiting from the RQAs. Asked if she felt RQAs are fairer or offer a greater sense of what she learned in class, Davina Anyanwu, a twelfth-grader responds, “It makes me sad that final exams are gone, but I do better on the RQAs because I don’t have to remember work from the beginning of the year like I did for final exams.”

As for how she would feel if colleges and universities all over the nation used a similar system and included more projects in the curriculum, Anyanwu says, “If colleges adopted the same system, I would have an easier time since the questions on the test would be recently learned. I don’t have to rush studying for something that I’ve almost completely forgotten.”

Another student whose feelings are similar to Anyanwu’s is Celestina Agabi, an eleventh-grader, who feels that “it’s good and bad because in English I need the exam to balance out my semester grade, but in every other class I’m better with RQAs. I still miss the days off I used to have though.”