By Emmy Ribero
With students having to adapt to the new normal of virtual learning, there have been many questions and concerns about how grading and testing will work for the semester. A new decision from the Howard County Board of Education has recently been announced that there will be no finals or midterms this year. The immediate feeling of relief has actually turned into panic for some students. This means that the two quarterly grades will determine a student’s grade for the class. The extra weight on quarter grades is an extra stressor for some students, but to others, it is much better than taking finals.
Some students would agree that not having final assessments is great news and very beneficial to their grades. Anya Nguyen, a senior, describes this decision as “Not only a life saver, but a grade saver as well.” Grades would have likely been negatively impacted by assessments this year because, for some students, it is harder to learn remotely, making the decision to not have them mostly preferred.
Not only their grades, however, will benefit from this removed stressor. Students report that no assessments has helped them with their mental health as well “In our current situation, I think it’s completely justifiable to not have finals. There’s a lot of unnecessary pressure being taken off students,“ says Ashlynn Braisted, a senior. Being online this year, students’ ability to really retain material has decreased, making the idea of having assessments even more horrible than before. Hence, making the news a huge relief to the majority of students.
Some students have started off the first quarter on the wrong foot. The transition from summer to remote learning was not an easy one to make. This can cause students to panic because their quarter grades will be weighed heavier because of the new policy. However, with the new grading policy, some students were confused how they would be calculated. For example, if a student has an A one quarter and a B the next, what would their final grade be? Their final grade will be an A, which is good news to many. To find how to specifically calculate grades, an announcement was sent out on the Student Community canvas page by Ms. Mckinley with the exact way to calculate it.
Additionally, students believe not having finals will allow them to focus on other things such as preparing for standardized tests or college applications . “I think it’s great that we can focus on more important things like college apps and it is a huge stress reliever for us seniors.” Says Jonathan Han, a senior. Having no finals looming overhead, the seniors are able to focus on their applications without worrying about continuous studying for their classes.
Having no assessments was a decision that mostly everyone is happy with. It was a very necessary decision made by the board that came with a lot of benefits. If tests were to occur, the outcome would likely not have been good on any ends. Academic honesty, overall grades, and stress would be problems that would impact students and teachers. All things considered, for the students of River Hill, no assessments were the best way that HCPSS could have handled this situation.