With the end of the semester approaching, Geneva High School students are preparing for finals. This year, finals have been pushed back so students will have their last test on Wednesday, December 22^nd. The break will also be extended to two and a half weeks instead of the usual two weeks.

“With this new schedule, it allows for more material to be covered and/or more time to be spent reviewing for final assessments.” Mike Kelly, a Dean at Geneva High School said.

This is just one of the benefits of the new schedule. In the past, students had to continue reviewing and studying over break because right afterwards they would come back to take their finals.

However, this new schedule allows for finals to be before break so students can fully enjoy their stress-free time off. This can be a huge stress reliever as test anxiety can cause many students to feel overwhelmed over the holidays.

“In a few years, when Christmas lands on a different day of the week besides a Saturday or Sunday, I could see our break looking more like it has in the past,” Dean Kelly said.

This means it’s possible that when Christmas falls over the weekend, this will be the schedule used.

Most students would prefer that finals be moved to before break permanently. This can benefit their mental health as they can use break to take a real mental break from schoolwork.

“I definitely rather have had all of my finals be before break so I can enjoy my time off and not worry about them.” Annie Monroe, senior at Geneva said.

Many students also believe they would perform better on their finals because with 2 weeks in between it is easy to forget the material.

“I think I definitely would do way better having all the material fresh in mind,” Monroe said. Sometimes when we take them after break it’s easy to forget some of the information and it causes lots of stress. I hope they keep it this way from now on.”

This schedule seems to be everyone’s preferred way to end the semester, however, some disagree.

Some say that too many students will have to cancel trips to visit family for the holidays or miss their finals which disrupts both the student’s and teacher’s schedule. This can also be an issue because of COVID.

If tested positive, students could spread it to their classmates or cause them to have to quarantine. This would disrupt people’s plans to see family over Christmas which is a risk many do not want to take.

Even though there are some that disagree, it seems that the majority of students and school faculty prefer that finals are taken before break. Hopefully, this is something that will become permanent in the future at Geneva.