This year, a new policy was established for the test makeup system: students are only allowed to take a maximum of three makeup tests per semester. At first, there were mixed reactions to this policy. This worried a majority of students, not just those who had previously taken advantage of the system in case a student was unprepared for a test. Was the policy effective? The Rampage interviewed Ms. Krupka and polled students to get their reactions to the policy’s outcome.

A significantly apparent outcome of this new policy, according to Ms. Krupka, was the incredible decrease in the number of makeups taken. Ms. Krupka feels as though “it worked as a deterrent,” discouraging students from abusing the makeup system. As a result of this “deterrent,” many students have not even used their three allotted makeups for the semester. For those few students who did reach and try to exceed their three makeup limit, Grade Deans scheduled meetings to discuss why they had missed so many tests and decide how to proceed.

Additionally, with the new AM Assembly test system, all history, world language, Hebrew, and physics tests will be taken by the entire grade at once and proctored by another teacher like during finals. Ms. Krupka believes that this system will make it “much easier to monitor who has missed a test” and create “an even further deterrent” to missing tests because now there will be stricter monitoring for attendance. Although this new system did not originate in correlation with the new makeup policy, “this was just a total side benefit,” according to Ms. Krupka. One thing that was hard for the administration to monitor was if they were to count a test as a makeup if a student came late that day. Now the administration is able to catch if a student comes to school considerably late around 9:30 AM, and then can notify the student that they are aware of their lateness, and as a consequence, the test will count as one of their makeups.

The results of the poll support the numbers Ms. Krupka suggested. Of the 35 students who participated in the poll, nearly 25% took zero makeups throughout the semester, nearly 50% took one makeup, and the other 25% split between two and three makeups, leaning towards two. There was also no notable difference between the amounts of how many makeups were taken for General vs Judaic studies. When asked for what reason they had taken the makeup, 51% of students responded that they were sick, 26% restated they hadn’t taken any makeups, and a 14% minority of students said they were away, as well as a variety of personal reasons. The reason behind the makeup is very important because with a legitimate reason it will be easier for students to plead their cases if they need to go past the three makeup maximum.

In the end, though this policy was extremely controversial to begin with, everything seems to have worked out well for the majority of students. Now the controversy is focused on the new AM Assembly test system. Students will have to wait to find out how that system will work out.

See the poll results below: