It didn’t take a wish in a wishing well to make every student’s dream come true. Leaving after two classes seems like a far off dream that would never make its way into reality, but the finals schedule this year incorporates a way to make it possible. With exemption cards signed and completed permission forms the new procedure prepares for teenagers that are ready to leave for the holidays.

Although it seems slightly complicated for some people, the new finals schedule is an efficient way to deal with students leaving early.

The most apparent flaw in this schedule is one that will concern only seniors but is still something that makes the schedule confusing. Seniors that have early release or late arrival don’t have a class for certain periods, so having that period switched to the middle of the day or being told that students must be in school for that class period, makes things unclear to those seniors. If it’s mandatory to be in school for every period that has a final that day, then the biggest issue would be where to go for those periods since those seniors wouldn’t have a class to go to. Administrators will probably have to revise this schedule or make arrangements for a place for these students to sit for those periods.

A long line of parents stretching out the front office doors and along the entire sidewalk is an expected feature of the week before Christmas break. It is a time when students are anxious to finish the last week of school before a 2 week break, and a time when teachers have already taught students everything they need for the semester. Without a thing to learn in class, students don’t see a need to sit for the last 2 classes after finals and usually ask their parents to pick them up early. The amount of students is consistently large as it can be seen by the long line of parents, so creating a system that allows students to gain permission to leave in advance will help alleviate the stress on parents and the front office. The new schedule will give students that are exempt from finals the opportunity to get permission from their parents to leave after the last final of the day. The way this will work is by having every student go straight to their next class for that day, even those with A lunch, where their teacher will give them a pass to go to their designated location if they have signatures for their exemption cards and a form filled out by their parents. These designated locations depend on the student’s grade unless they drive to school which means they would just go to their car and leave. Having these separate locations will spread the traffic for parents and make the pickup process easier and quicker, and having every detail planned out will keep things more organized and less chaotic than previous years.

Minor changes should be made to accommodate seniors that don’t have classes for certain periods, but overall, the idea to work students leaving early into the schedule will take a burden off of parents and the front office. The new schedule has promised to become a productive system to handle students leaving early. After seeing the results from this year, administrators should use what works and what doesn’t to continue building better schedules for future years.