By Joshi Mylavarapu, Quill Writer
For the first time in Howard County history, students aren’t only fighting for their grade during midterm exam season, but also against time itself. In the 2025-2026 school year, the Howard County Board of Education approved a new midterm schedule consisting of three exams a day instead of two, with sixty minutes to complete them instead of the previous ninety. While the change in duration and volume of the exams may seem minor, the revised schedule has stirred considerable discussion, and what might have once seemed like a matter that only the students should be concerned about has turned into a widespread topic of discussion.
One of the biggest concerns held by students and staff is the perceived fairness of the new exams. Junior Seher Puthawala argued, “It’s not fair to give us less time for an exam that still counts for 10% of our overall grade, [as] a shorter test will not accurately assess our knowledge [from] the past two quarters.”
A number of teachers share this opinion. “Students already have a lot going on during exam season, three tests a day will only drain them further,” remarks Ms. Shannon, a math teacher at River Hill. Some teachers are also concerned that there is less time for grading the exams. “We usually have the half-days to catch up on grading and stay up to date, but now there’s less time during work hours to get it all done” observed Ms. Appel, an instructor in the Fine Arts Department.
While some students and teachers raise objections to the timing difficulties of this new schedule, others beg to differ. “While it is more tiring for students to handle three exams a day compared to two, I find that the shorter time-frame for [each] exam is better for my exam specifically,” comments Señora Stern, a Spanish teacher at River Hill. Sophomore Livvy Williams ventures, “I can kind of see a reason for the change, some of my midterms last year had students sitting around at the end of class for around thirty minutes just doing nothing.”
Following initial reactions to the change, the students and teachers of River Hill HS have shared what steps they will be taking to compensate for the new exam schedule. To account for the exams being half an hour shorter, some students include that they will be studying less-in-depth for each subject, and instead doing more of an overall review of the first two quarters. Fatima Sadiq states, “since there are three exams in one day, I’ll need to study for each class on separate days so I don’t end up cramming for all three days prior to the midterm.” Marybeth Biewer adds, “I will do a less in-depth review of content and focus more on bigger topics.” Other students, including Eliza Buchman and Jules Tran, explain that they won’t be making any drastic changes in terms of how they will prepare for the exams, even given the shorter length of them. Buchman states that she will “divide up [her] time and start studying earlier for longer.” Tran explains that she will “try to break down each subject and make sure I manage my time well.” Quite a few teachers across all departments at RHHS share that they will be adjusting their exams in order to fit into the window of test-taking. Ms Shannon notes that she will be removing almost a quarter of her multiple choice portion of the test, to ensure that students have enough time to complete the exam. Other teachers agree with this adjustment, reformatting their tests respectively.
Dr. Jeffrey Fink, the Director of High Schools for HCPSS, shares the reasoning behind this new schedule. According to Dr. Fink, the idea of utilizing two half-days instead of three and compacting the exams to fit in that timeframe is something that was supposed to be tested for the 2024-2025 school year. However, because of the excessive snow days throwing off the calendar and pushing midterms back, this new calendar could not work for the conditions. Which is why this new schedule is being carried out for this year and the following, as a new calendar must be implemented for two years before deciding to continue it or not. As for why the final exams are still formatted with the old calendar, that is due to it being too early in the year to decide which schedule to implement, as it is unforeseeable how many snow days will be used this year, as well as how far back the school year can be pushed until summer school is scheduled to start.
“This is also the earliest we have released the Midterm schedule, from the foreseeable past. Working with the Teacher’s Union, it was clear there was a need for some adjustment, which is why we released the schedule earlier to [account] for that,” Dr. Fink reports. He also takes accountability for the teachers not feeling like they have adequate time to grade the exams, but he says, “That was at least one of my goals– to get clear teacher feedback so we could get input and draft the schedule accordingly, however I’m aware through [the teachers’] lenses that this seems like less time to get on top of grades.” Throughout the conducted interview, Dr. Fink made clear that this schedule was crafted with the opinions of students, teachers, principals and parents of Howard County. And while it might not seem like it now, this new calendar could lead to an even smoother and less stressful time for every single participant in the exam process across all of HCPSS.