When students think about finals, we automatically start to worry and stress. As the days we take finals get closer, some students sacrifice their health as they prepare themselves, sleeping less and staying up longer to try to cram in as many pieces of information as they can. 

Finals, now combined with COVID-19, are putting more stress on students than ever before. Online learning has made this school year hard for students by being trapped inside, stuck learning on too-bright screens, and managing life in a pandemic worrying about what could happen next. Grades this semester have proven that the transition to online learning has been difficult at best, and impossible at worse. This year would be an excellent time to implement a finals opt-out policy and reduce stress that students have when faced with final exams. 

Especially considering the school year we have had, we need a way to help make that stress go away, or at least reduce it. In our own district, Austin High already uses a policy that could help with this: opting out of two of your midterms or finals, providing your grades are good enough. Students who have an 85 or higher in a class, no more than three absences, and no disciplinary actions qualify for the chance to opt out and seniors have up to 4 chances to opt out.

If this policy were implemented at Mac, it would remove some of the pressure students are under. It may seem radical, but in reality, this policy makes a lot of sense. Because you need a certain grade to qualify for an exemption, it would serve as a reward for the students who have been working hard through online school to maintain good grades and attendance. This would also help counteract the lack of motivation so many students have towards online school: the opportunity to pass on a final would be seen as a motivator for some students who have found it hard to put in the work thus far. 

The opt-out policy also helps students focus on the finals that they didn’t qualify to opt out of classes where they may be struggling a bit. Using that extra time to go over material that we really don’t know gives us a higher possibility of passing the tests, as well as an opportunity to obtain a deeper knowledge on those tougher subjects. Plus, it’s not like we’ve never made the decision to prioritize student mental health over finals before. Think back to last year, when we opted to have no finals at all. Our current situation isn’t much different from the one last May; after almost nine months of coronavirus stress, students and teachers both deserve a bit of a break.

A chance to lessen the finals workload would also help level the online-learning playing field. As students, it’s not the same getting help person to person through technology. It can be difficult for so many reasons; some students have technology problems, and some of us struggle simply because after sitting in front of a computer for such a long time, our eyes begin to hurt. Reducing the number of finals students have to worry about, prepare for, and take would help balance out the unique struggles of online learning. 

In honor of the holidays, the work students and teachers have put in this school year, and November being the National Mental Health Month, let’s do something to help reduce student stress. For teachers, this policy could also help by reducing the amount of grading they have to do, a process that due to online learning already takes much more time than it should.

Coronavirus has taken away the fun parts of high school. There are no dances, no social interaction, harder learning styles, and more pressure and unhappiness than ever. We need a win. This policy would be a great addition under normal circumstances. Now, the opportunity to opt out of a final is not only beneficial to both students and teachers, but necessary given our current circumstances. We already have enough to worry about; at least as long as we’re living in a global pandemic, let’s make finals a little less stressful.