The future of the school’s finals schedule is now in the hands of the Board of Education. The district calendar committee presented a written report on Monday, Dec. 10 regarding the 2013-2014 calendar, which included an option for half-day finals. The committee asked the Board to take action on the calendar by its Monday, Jan. 14 meeting.
The district is the only one in Johnson County that does not have a half-day finals schedule. However, according to social studies teacher Jeff Wieland, De Soto High School had half-day finals at one time.
“The district used to have half-day finals before the high schools split [in 2000,]” Wieland said. “An old superintendent decided to eliminate them after Mill Valley was built but nobody knows why for sure.”
When Wieland came to the district, he was surprised there wasn’t a half-day finals policy in place. The current schedule includes four full days of finals, alternating between study periods and finals periods.
“I used to teach in Virginia, and we had half-day finals there,” Wieland said. “I had [half-day finals] in high school, too. Coming from the outside, I brought it up to the teacher’s association because it was a problem that needed to be fixed.”
Though Wieland presented the idea to the De Soto Teacher’s Association, there was confusion as to how the idea should be brought up for approval.
“We didn’t know if it needed to start with the principal and work its way up through the district or if we needed to bring it up with the calendar committee,” Wieland said. “It took teacher initiative to get it brought up through administration. Nobody knew where it was supposed to go or how to get the topic introduced.”
Since the calendar committee didn’t have a set number of representatives from each building, Wieland decided to join. He presented his idea and was able to start a research committee this year. The research committee distributed surveys to staff members and student representatives and was met with resistance from some elementary school teachers.
An elementary teacher who wishes to remain anonymous opposes the idea of half-day finals because she feels it would give high school teachers the unfair advantage of extra plan time.
“I think it’s really great for students. They deserve a break because there is a lot of pressure at the end of the semester, but I don’t think it’s fair,” she said. “I would love to have a couple half days at the end of a semester to get caught up and plan.”
Wieland does not believe instituting a half-day schedule would give high school teachers more plan time than normal.
“[Half-day finals are] actually about improving finals and student learning,” Wieland said. “They allow students flexibility in preparing for their tests, and with Common Core standards rising, tests are going to require more writing, reading, etc. Teachers aren’t designing finals with Common Core standards in mind when they have to turn around and grade them so quickly, which is why [half-day finals] would benefit teachers as well.”
Calendar committee representative and math teacher Laurie Deuschle agrees that half-day finals would benefit students and teachers alike.
“Students care a lot about their grades and grades sometimes ride on finals,” Deuschle said. “[Students] feel stressed and are under a lot of pressure to do well. Ideally, we would have three or four half-day finals, and I could use part of the afternoons to schedule appointments to work with students individually. The other part of the afternoon I would use to schedule study groups and review certain topics. I would use the last day for grading.”
Senior Kate Burton said half-day finals would be more beneficial than the current schedule.
“Personally, I think the study periods are a waste of time,” Burton said. “Nobody really uses them. I think that I would study more and be more prepared [if we had half-day finals] because I wouldn’t just put off [studying] until the hour and a half ‘study period’ we get each day [of finals].”
Junior Alex Rounds, on the other hand, thinks the hour-and-a-half study periods before each final are beneficial and does not like the idea of having half-day finals.
“[Study periods] help me any time I have questions,” Rounds said. “I can review and it makes me feel more confident going into the final. [With half-day finals] you’re going straight from one final into the next. I know there’s a 30-minute break [between them] but that’s not enough [time] to take your mind off the last final.”
Deuschle thinks it will only be a matter of time before half-day finals are approved.
“I don’t know if the board will make a decision the first time the idea is presented or if they will need time to think about it and discuss it, but I think they will approve it,” Deuschle said. “They will hear that it is what’s best for students and they will act upon it.”
