By Steven Yang ‘23
Like clockwork, hundreds of St. Markers will study hours for their midterms during assessment week, working tirelessly for a positive academic start to Window 2. But balancing the beginning of winter athletics and up to seven classes is already difficult for many students—is assessment week really necessary?
Assessment week currently has a unique schedule, with students having two long blocks every day that each lasts two hours, one from 8:30 to 10:30 and the other from 1 to 3. Wednesday morning consists of a reading block, where students essentially have free time to use however they want, for example, as a sleep-in or just extra study time. Athletic practices still happen for most students, meaning their afternoons are still taken up and not allowed for studying. The upside of this schedule, though, is that students retain free time from 10:30 until 1 every day, and can use that to study in addition to the time offered during the reading block and any frees.
The issue is the large disparity between what teachers do for assessment week, as they have lots of freedom as to what they do. Some assign group projects weeks in advance, presenting their final project during assessment week. Others watch movies and use the block as an opportunity for students to relax. Only some teachers actually use “assessments”, or tests, during their time.
As a result, some students will have a stressful assessment week, with five or six tests—others will have no tests at all. This makes assessment week virtually pointless. In a normal week, students get varying amounts of testing and work anyway. Assessment week doesn’t change that, but with the negative consequence of cutting class time for all classes. Even though classes wouldn’t meet on Friday due to the beginning of Winter Break, all classes would meet for longer in an abridged week with a normal schedule. Why keep assessment week if it isn’t having its intended effect?