December marks the beginning of the end of the first semester. The temperature drops, and classes begin to wrap up, preparing students for the inevitable exams to come. This year, however, is different to those previous. There have been drastic changes in the way Tampa Prep administrates exams, and it is here to stay.

Students who have attended Tampa Prep prior to 2016 remember the school’s old approach to administering exams. A year packed full of midterms as well as finals, totaling ten exams. Around two years ago, high level administration as well as a board of parents and teachers decided to start experimenting with different concepts of exams.

When asked about the meeting, Head of Upper School Carl Carlson and other administrators “decided to look at the question of why we do exams,” Carlson said.  The school decided that for the first time that they would skp midterms, replacing them with culminating projects, and continue on with finals. When the year ended, they surveyed the students and parents, with two thirds of them agreeing that the switch in exams helped create a less stressful year. As for the teachers, a survey showed that half of them approved of the switch, while the other half did not. The year after the initial experiment the school decided to switch the exam schedule from the previous year, taking exams for midterms and ending the year with culminating projects. These past two years caused confusion for not only the students but also the teachers.

After two years of experimenting with new exam schedules, the administration, board of parents, and teacher representatives once again met to discuss the future of exams. However, they were not able to agree on a single option. Carlson prides Tampa Prep on its ability to compromise in these difficult situations. Both continuing with the previous exam schedule and the idea of removing exams altogether seemed too drastic to pick a single side, so the administration decided to compromise between the two.

This year, they decided to create a hybrid between the two.

“Maybe a balance is the best way to go,” Carlson said. The idea is to split the exams into two semesters, administering three exams first semester, and finishing the year with two exams. This way, the stress associated with studying and cramming for five exams in five days is greatly reduced, giving more time to study less material.

This revolutionary idea fundamentally changes the way high schools could end their semesters. Research proves that exams force students to study an enormous amount of information in a very short time span, so even if they perform well on the test, in a weeks time they would forget most of the topics they studied. As for culminating projects, this gives teachers an opportunity to create a project that they feel gives students the best chance to retain the information they learned throughout the year in a less stressful environment.

However, most colleges administer exams, and since this is a college preparatory school, most parents and teachers feel it is the students best interest to be exposed to the testing environments they will most likely see in college.

Although the trend in schools seems to be pointing to the possibility of removing exams altogether, the process is a slow and complicated one, and will probably take years for it to go into full effect. That being said, Tampa Prep has shown their dedication to listening to their students, and took the necessary steps to promote a less stressful environment all while continuing to prepare students for college.