By Mason Rosse
Does Trimester Two’s short length affect students? I decided to ask the student body, here is what I got.
Trimester two never fails to receive complaints. I sent a form out, and around 80% of students said that trimester two is too short. Over 55% said that it affects their grades negatively, and around 50% said it should be lengthened/changed. Miles Freidman, a sophomore, says: “I understand why it is short but I think it makes my life a lot harder, especially with standard-based grading. There is no gap between getting your grades back and having to sign for retakes.” This quote represents the pain of many. Tatsuya, a freshman, says that “It’s not that trimester two is so short, it’s that trimester one is so long,” and although we all understand that the trimesters are split up by breaks, the amount of work one has to do before the break to get their grade up is difficult.
Written answers on the form explain that “It doesn’t give you enough time to improve,” “I have less time than I’d like to complete retakes,” and “This gives you no opportunity to better your grades if you do badly on one test because all scores are based on tests.” Other people mentioned that “Because of how short trimester two is, the teachers have to cram a lot of content into a short amount of time, leading to an extraordinarily high amount of homework.” Also, people in junior and senior grades mentioned that it affected them more when they were Freshman and Sophomores.
What could the school do to solve this? Most people thought shortening trimester one was the best solution, but that would make winter break cut right through the beginning of trimester two. Is that worth evening out the length of the trimesters?