In past years, Midterm Week was usually the second or third week of January for students at Great Neck North. It entailed a full week of testing and no classes. Students came in at specific times throughout those seven days to take their tests, and spent the rest of the day studying to prepare for later midterms. The testing schedule can be found on the front page of the Great Neck North school website.

However, this year, students were surprised to find that Midterm “Week” was now for only two days, specifically on Monday and Friday, instead of for the entire week. Even more frightening is that there are classes in session from Tuesday through Thursday. Although there are less official midterms being administered, many of the students share the same opinion on this change to midterm testing: They really don’t like it.

“I think [Midterm Week] isn’t as good as last year, considering that now we don’t have as much time to study…Tuesday through Thursday, [students] have to deal with other classes, [unlike] last year when you could focus solely on the classes with the midterms,” 10th Grader Jacqueline Manelis states. Having classes instead of off-days increases the stress levels of many students, since they have less free time for studying or relaxing. This may lead to fewer hours for sleeping, which can tire out students and cause them to perform poorly on their midterms. Generally, students oppose their new time constraints associated with midterm testing, but the Administration take another side to this issue.

When asked about why this change was implemented, Mr. Holtzman stated, “There were two primary reasons. One, we (Administration) were trying to reduce the number of exams students were scheduled to take in any given day. And secondly…New York State Education Department is becoming less flexible with school in terms of what they’re declaring to be official school days…We used to be able to give exams during that week, and they would count as school days. Now the state is saying that they don’t count as official school days, and we have a minimum number of days that we have to have our instruction.”

Some students who disagree that this new Midterm Week reduces the amount of testing say that their teachers are still giving tests around this time in order to take the place of a midterm; however, Mr. Holtzman responded that on the weeks before and during midterm testing, only one department is allowed to give quizzes/tests on a designated day. “If you compare these two weeks against any other given week, then the amount of tests that you potentially have is actually less…on any given week,” based off of the reasoning that teachers have restrictions on testing students. Dr. Krauz agreed with Mr. Holtzman, and brought in the discussion of families using Midterm Week in the past for a vacation, only to have their children take the tests on a makeup day. The vacation is not necessary, considering how there are breaks within two weeks before and after midterms, so the new structure of Midterm Week was implemented to prevent this.  

Mr. Holtzman and Dr. Krauz both acknowledge the complexities of this issue, especially regarding the balance between testing and instructional time, as well as the consideration of student interests and teachers’ interests. For now, they both encourage students to be open-minded to this change and adapt for success. “People can be critical of it without having gone through the entire testing process yet…It would be unfair to say that it’s not a right thing to do before we go through it, but I think that we need to go through a couple of cycles of this before we can really determine whether or not it is an effective way of using this time,” Mr. Holtzman says. He, along with other educators of the school, want students to understand that Administration makes decisions according to the greater interests. For the future, Mr. Holtzman and Dr. Krauz hope to evaluate student performance, communicate with teachers, and implement new changes as necessary to further improve or develop the midterm schedule.