This year, SDA will have a finals schedule on the last two days of the first semester.  Thursday, Jan. 22, and Friday, Jan. 23, will both be minimum days, with two two-hour periods on each day. Periods one and two will be on Thursday, and periods three and four will be on Friday.

Principal Tim Hornig said that the idea of having a finals schedule was raised at  one of the student forums. “Ideas come up as discussion topics, but lots of them don’t really go anywhere. But this one actually got a lot of traction at the beginning of the year; students were asking us why we didn’t have a finals schedule,” he said.

The idea was presented to the staff after it gained momentum in the forum, with teacher Kerry Koda taking a leadership role.  “We surveyed staff, we discussed the pros and the cons of adding a minimum day schedule,” Hornig said

Hornig said that there used to be a finals schedule at the ends of the semesters, but it had been discontinued. “Teachers at that point kind of asked off of it, because nobody was really giving finals during that time,” he said. He said that he believes students requested its return because it balances out the number of finals they end up with each day.

“Our teachers try to balance out who does what… but in theory you could end up with three or four finals in one day,” he said. He said that some teachers may still choose to deliver finals earlier in the week, but that it should hopefully prevent students from having three or four finals on one day.

Though creating another minimum day isn’t a problem because SDA is well over the required number of minimum instructional minutes per year, the late start scheduled for the last week of the semester has been cancelled. “When you have another minimum day obviously it comes at the expense of something, but that’s why we put back in the hour lunch day on that Wednesday,” he said.

Another concern voiced by the staff, Hornig said, was that the finals schedule would prevent them from enjoying the end of term with their students, because the last day would be focused on testing. “But what we realized was, given a two hour period, they could probably give a final and do something that could enhance culture,” Hornig said.

Hornig plans for students and staff to be surveyed afterwards to judge whether the new schedule proved beneficial, and if so, it will continue to be used. “We currently have it in the spring semester; we’ve already adjusted June 11th to be a minimum day as well as June 12th,” he said. He said that seniors would have to take finals at an earlier time, as they will not be attending class on the final two days of school.