Video by Kelly Phares and Ian McCafferty
Story by Emma Stancey
At the Monday night school board meeting, the calendar issue was discussed and a new calendar for the 2013-14 school year was proposed.
According to board member Suzyn Price, the calendar is a compromise between the students’ and elementary parents’ wishes. She said it supports District 203 students of all ages.
“I can feel comfortable with this calendar because it’s a compromise and it’s the best we can do for our community,” said Price.
The proposed calendar features a starting date of August 21st and final exams during first semester, December 18th through 20th.
Junior Joey Greco, one of the initiators of the student petitions, addressed the severity of the issue to the board at the October 1st meeting.
“When 2,000+ students come to the School Board with the desires of keeping testing days before winter break, the opinion of their question holds some weight,” said Greco.
Greco emphasized the fact that many generations will be affected if the district “makes this mistake”.
The other petition-initiator, junior Austin Hansen, said, “moving finals would only create fake vacations, add to the already high level of stress, and make for an incredibly inefficient use of our time.”
Two additional NNHS students spoke in favor of keeping finals before break, including junior Elizabeth Holada and Senior Cari Cesarotti.
According to board member Dave Weeks, exams should be pushed to after winter break because that’s they way high schools have done it for decades.
“The norm has always been exams after Christmas,” Weeks said.
Weeks’ colleague Jackie Romberg was not convinced.
“I went to a high performing high school and we had exams after winter break; we also had a smoking section,” Romberg said. “We don’t always do things the way we’ve always done them.”
The majority of board and community members were in favor of keeping exams before break, but the final results won’t be decided until the board members vote at their October 15th meeting.
