By Chloe Newton
Staff Writer
The average zero period student wakes up at 6:00 a.m. every morning in order to arrive at school by 7:00 a.m. Waking up this early to get to school is never fun, especially when a test that can make or break your grade is waiting for you.
During finals week, students attend two of their classes each day from 8:00 am to 12:21 pm. On Wednesday, students will go to their first and second periods, Thursday third and fourth, and Friday fifth and sixth.
This schedule gives students the necessary amount of time they need to finish their final without being rushed. Although this seems like a good plan, there is one flaw in the system – there is no allotted time for zero period.
Without the two-hour time period, zero period finals have to be split into two one-hour class periods depending on when the teacher decides to have it. This makes things unorganized, leading to students feeling more overwhelmed and stressed.
According to math teacher Andrea Collicutt, she gave her zero period students the option to come in early at 6:00 a.m., giving them two hours before school to take their final, but the option did not appeal to her students. Therefore, she decided to split up her final over two days.
Although this may make things unorganized, it gives students more time to study. With their test being broken up into two days, students can go back and review more, giving them an unfair advantage. However, the zero period scores were comparable with Collicutt’s other classes’s scores.
According to Spanish teacher Edward Frigola, he decided to split his final up into two days as well. The first section of his test was given the Friday before finals week and the second was given the Tuesday of finals, giving them the weekend to study for the second half.
With this plan, students are able to get their final out of the way so they can prepare for their other classes. The average high school student spends approximately 17 hours each week studying and preparing for classes, according to the National Survey of Student Engagement findings. The schedule gives students a three day weekend to study so they won’t be as overwhelmed.
Although this seems like a fair conclusion, many students are unhappy with the system. According to nationwidechildrens.org, the average amount of sleep teenagers get is around seven hours. However, they need between nine and nine-and-a-half hours to be fully rested.
The majority of students are sleep deprived because they are up late studying, and then have to wake up around 6:00 a.m. to arrive at school by 7:00 a.m. for their zero period class. Many studies show that sleep deprivation can negatively affect students’ academic performance, leading to a drop in test scores.
According to sophomore Alli Koch, she is never completely awake during zero period, and it is affecting her overall performance in her zero period class. Most finals greatly impact the grades of students so they should be completely ready and well rested for such an important test.
With the finals bell schedule not including zero period, it creates an unorganized system and makes it difficult for students and teachers. If there was an allotted time for all zero period students to take their finals, test scores would improve and students would be less stressed out.
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