On Friday, Sept. 6, principal Jeremy Mitchell met with the senior members of the Longhorn Council (LoCo) Executive Board to discuss options for seniors.
Senior finals are scheduled from May 5 – 9, with a delayed-start day falling in the middle of the week. The shortened day would interfere with the time allotted for the fifth and sixth hour finals.
“It would be fine if the teachers accommodated for it, but if they didn’t, it would make finals more difficult,” senior Megan Senol said.
The administration formulated two possible options for the rescheduling of senior finals.
Option one begins with the seventh hour final on Monday, followed by the sixth and fifth hour finals on Tuesday. After the short break from finals, Thursday resumes testing for the fourth and third hour finals, with second and first hour finals will end senior finals on Friday.
“It’s the best option because then we won’t have to take three finals in a day, two finals is enough,” said senior Allison Wright.
The second testing option begins on Tuesday with sixth and seventh hour finals, with fifth, fourth, and third hour finals all falling on Thursday. Friday ends senior finals week with second and first hour finals. Despite having three finals fall on the same day, option two presents seniors with a shorter week of school.
Mitchell said, “we wanted to consider the option of limiting exams to only three days. We were not sure if students would like to reduce the number of exam days from four to three days, knowing that the middle day with three exams would be tough.”
Students at West have constantly been involved in the administration’s efforts to reach out and interact with the Longhorn community.
“It seems foolish not to ask for student input when the decisions impact their life significantly,” principal Mitchell said.
Senior members of the LoCo board were called into Mitchell’s office to discuss the two options and how to present them to the senior class. The senior board unanimously voted in favor of option one due to three finals falling on Thursday in option two.
“It spread out the stress of finals week. It literally would have been impossible to have three finals on one day,” Student Body President, senior Yasmin Younis said.
The two options were put to a vote on Saturday, Sept. 7 on the Class of 2014 Facebook group; predictably, option one was also unanimous with the senior class. The administration and faculty have both agreed with the senior class and have decided on option one for the final schedule for the seniors’ testing week.
In response to the unanimous decision in scheduling, Dr. Mitchell said, “I was pleased to see an agreement by all in Longhorn Universe.”
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