Similar to last year’s schedule, finals testing will take place across four days with two finals per day. Instead of review time before each final teachers will host office hours during the first and second period of the day. Office hours provide students with the opportunity to receive one-on-one assistance.

According to Assistant Principal Joseph Schaller, the two school days before semester finals are review days. Even if a student is eligible to skip a final, he or she must come to school all day on these two days.

He said it is up to parents whether or not attendance during office hours is mandatory. The administration will send an email to parents this month asking if they want their student to be at school. Attendance will be taken for students whose parents request mandatory attendance.

Schaller said the buses will run on a normal schedule, arriving at school between 7:15 and 7:30 a.m. and

leaving around 3:20 p.m. 

Junior Haley Safrin said she looks forward to studying without distractions in the morning at home. While she plans to sleep in as much as she can, she will attend office hours for classes she struggles with.

Safrin said she thinks it will be easier to take finals back to back because she won’t worry about cramming.

“(The old finals schedule) kinda made you worry and try to find things really fast before you have to take your final, so just getting it out of the way will be easier, I won’t have to feel that stress,” Safrin said.

Schaller said several factors motivated him and other staff members to change the schedule. The process for changing the schedule began over a year ago, but it was unclear if the school could legally host half-day finals. This schedule’s goals include improving attendance rates and giving students more time to sleep.

He said, “The driving force was just to create a better schedule on students, make it a little less stressful for them.”

About a decade ago, schools did implement half-day finals but had to change the schedule due to a rule change. This is the first time CHS will implement a schedule like this.

Administrators were able to change this year’s final schedule due to CHS’s status as a high-performing school, which grants more flexibility, according to Schaller. The state assigns schools this status based off of data such as test scores and attendance rates.

Schaller said he hopes students will take full advantage of the opportunities this schedule offers. He said the morning off should give students extra sleep to help with test taking and reduce wasted time during review periods.

According to Schaller, this schedule is open to change for the next semester based on success rates.