At the beginning of this semester a new testing policy began. Students were informed by their grade deans that certain subjects (History, World Languages, Hebrew, Biology, and Physics) would now admit tests during an AM Assembly period. This way, the entire student body would take a test at the same time. Prior to the initiation of the policy, scheduling tests in these subjects had been difficult as not all students in a grade had that class on the same day in the week. This lead to students in different tracks taking the same test for the same class on different days, leaving the test calendar a total mess and engendering much uncertainty over when a certain section had their test scheduled. Also, students with extra time always used up time from other classes to finish their test. With this new AM-Assembly testing system in place, all of these problems were intended to go away. 

A faculty meeting was conducted to discuss the outcome so far. A majority of faculty had been delighted by the outcome. However, a few suggestions were made by faculty based on some minor upsets the system met. Several of these suggestions had been acquired through teacher-student discussion about how their tests went. Many students felt that with this system, an extra sense of stress was placed on them. In addition, students noted that the way the tests were conducted made them feel like finals. In addition, there were issues of volume control in the hallways while students with extra time were still testing. According to Ms. Krupka, “For the most part, the administration was hearing good things” at this meeting. 

After around three tests had been conducted in this style, the plan was to send out a student survey according to Ms. Krupka. In this survey students would list their opinion of how the system was working so far. However, due to the school shutting down for Coronavirus, a third AM Assembly test was never administered and subsequently that survey was never sent out. Thus the administration never officially reevaluated the system to decide if this trial run would continue into the next school year. But in the likelihood that we do return this year, this system, as per now, is expected to continue. However, if students do not return this semester, Ms. Krupka believes that “we will continue with this experiment next year,” and we can expect “a large chunk of subjects” to take part in this experiment, in addition to the subjects already participating.