By Max Rifkind-Barron

In a move to better serve the needs of students who take extended time testing, the administration has formulated a new schedule for midterms that will integrate those students with regular time students, Assistant to the Head of Upper School Michelle Bracken said.

In what Bracken described as a “trial run,” all students will take their exams in the same space for each subject, rather than having separate facilities.

The new schedule will also start an hour earlier, at 8 a.m., to better accommodate the extended time students as well as to provide greater flexibility for students with conflicts.

“With so many students taking two or three sciences or histories,” Bracken said “there’s bound to be conflicts. Starting earlier will make it easier for us to accommodate different needs students may have.”
Each session of testing will run for two hours, as usual, at which point regular time students will be dismissed. Extended time students will then be allowed to stay for an extra hour.

Another new feature of this schedule will be a two-hour break between each of the three two-hour exam sessions, although this extra break will only affect students who don’t take extended time.

In addition to giving the students a longer respite between exams, the extra time will give the administration greater freedom to accommodate students who have conflicting exams, Bracken said.
 
Bracken said the school hopes that these changes will provide both a greater level of comfort for the extended time students as well as an opportunity for those students to ask their teachers questions during the exam.

The Feldman-Horn Gallery originally served as the testing center for extended time, but was eventually deemed too small for the 81 students who receive extended time, Bracken said.

The old extended time finals and midterms were not necessarily proctored by teachers of the exams being taken.

Extended time students will be fully integrated into the normal testing space and will not be seated in a separate section.

Bracken emphasized that this plan is not set in stone for finals in May.