“We’re Here for the Students”: The End of Midterms

Principal Clain has announced that the 2018-2019 MHS midterm policy is changing drastically. After receiving backlash from the past year’s “summatives,” the Mamaroneck School Board decided to eliminate all midterms. Going forward, the teachers will decide how they test students at the end of the second semester.

Principal Clain hopes that teachers will think of “creative” ways to assess students. In an interview she questioned, “Why is our learning so disconnected? I am puzzled by this idea that we break things up into units.” With the new policy in place, she hopes that teachers will “build” upon previous units learned. For example, a test given in the third quarter may incorporate ideas learned in the first quarter into questions. As part of the new plan, the MHS administration has created a testing period of up to 12 days before the end of each quarter to reduce stress. This schedule will assign one or two subjects the ability to test per day.

Before the 2017-2018 school year, Mamaroneck High School stopped classes for one week of midterm testing. The week took days out of the school year and as a result did not meet New York State’s required number of school days for receiving state aid. The Mamaroneck School Board came up with “summatives” as a solution. Summatives lasted from the middle of December to the end of January in which there were several block days with 90 minute periods devoted to mid-year testing. After sending out a post-summative survey, Principal Clain said that the feedback received was “overwhelmingly negative for both teachers and students.” Many students reported that they crammed and felt even more stressed because they studied for the exams over the course of two months.

Most colleges and universities reserve a testing period for midterms, and many MHS students question if this new “no midterm” policy will prepare them for that. Others are skeptical of their teachers following Clain’s idea of “building” on material and instead sticking to their traditional ways of testing. Ms. Clain states that MHS is “here for the students” and hopes that this new plan will create a healthier and less stressful learning environment for the future.

By Lizzy Kaplan