With changing district credit requirements, many students are not taking classes after lunch during fifth or sixth periods.

As a result, the last day of the traditional finals schedule when these two classes used to meet would have seen a significant number of students off campus.

Because of this, the district decided to change the traditional chronological order of classes to a new schedule: Tuesday – periods 1 and 4; Wednesday – 2 and 5; Thursday – 3 and 6. A period final is still on Monday.

This is to avoid the final day of fifth and sixth periods, which would cause many students to start their winter break a day early. While some students would have preferred it that way, keeping the traditional schedule would have hurt the district financially.

A mass absence causes a decrease in Average Daily Attendance (ADA), which negatively impacts the money a school district receives from the state of California.

So, while a change in schedule may be inconvenient for students who have always been on the traditional schedule, the change makes perfect sense for the district financially. It would also benefit students.

For students without fifth or sixth periods, the new schedule spaces out their finals so they’re not all crammed into two days.  And for students with a full schedule of classes, it only changes the order of finals, which isn’t that significant. 

While the decision to change the schedule is positive for all involved, the fact that it wasn’t announced earlier or in a more direct way could have been handled better. While a notice was recently emailed and posted on district and school websites, there are definitely students who can overlook these kinds of messages

In the future, changes to something like finals that clearly impacts students and teachers should be announced a little earlier with more fanfare.