Midterm exams begin Tuesday, January 13 and the exemption policy has recently been changed. All students who are exempt from a final must be in attendance and in class on the day of the exam. Administrators have established the new policy in order to better ensure the student’s safety. The old policy, where students checked into the gym or another holding room, was adapted due to its inefficiency. Academic AP Erin Frye thinks the new system will help correct the issues.
“We had to have a good number of monitors because we had to have admin and teachers pulled from conference time to monitor.” Frye said. “Also we had kids all over the building that made it very difficult to track student movement.”
Administrators do not believe the added students will negatively affect the testing environment. They hope to reduce the amount of commotion coming from the hallway by keeping the students under control in the classroom. Although noise control is an added bonus, the Administrators’ main focus of the change is to keep students safe.
“We have a responsibility to keep students as safe as possible,” Frye said. “And the more permutations that are allowed that create potential chaos increases the chance of something going awry.”
These plans are held in the belief that the more restrictions the school has on off campus dealings, the better the chance of averting a disaster. Early in the school’s history, a student by the name of Lasharon Powell was off campus and became a part of a crash that resulted in her death and the permanent brain damage of another student. With an example like this in mind, campuses have been closed for exemptions this year.
A detailed FAQ about this topic can be found on Legacy’s website.