This year, finals will be held during January, only a week after winter break: Jan 12-Jan 15. This will probably cause a drastic decrease in grades, as teachers only have a week to review the semester on top of covering new material.

“I expect that scores will be low,” Biology teacher Neisha Walker said. “After the holidays, students tend to forget things, and it takes a while to get back into the groove of school again. I don’t think there is enough time after the break to review everything”.

With many students being fully online, grades have already been much worse from previous years. This, on top of a large break before midterms, almost ensures lower grades.

“Compared to other years, midterms will be miserable,” junior Jack Randazzo said. “Nobody wants to study during winter break, but we’ll have to.”

Semester finals were moved to January because the school year began so late. It is open-note, just like tests and quizzes.

“I think it’d be more fair to give the option of taking the test before the break,” sophomore Vu Nguyen said. “Some students have different circumstances and may feel more prepared taking finals before an extended break.”

After school starts up again Jan. 5, there’s five school days until finals begin. Two of those days are review days, where teachers review all the content from the semester.

“The pacing of this year has been much faster because we have less time,” Walker said. “During dead days, we have a lot of material to go back over before testing. We’ll do our best, but I expect it will feel a little overwhelming for most of us, teachers included.”