In addition to all of the changes in the 2020/2021 school year, Berkley High School decided to get rid of final exams and make this modification their new normal. Instead of a final exam for each class, BHS students will now have to complete final projects. For example, many teachers assigned an end of the semester review survey where students are able to reflect on their semester and be able to show all of their thinking and comprehension of the content.

Final exams have taken place at the end of the semester since Berkley’s origin in 1949. This alteration has many positive and negative aspects. One positive is that students don’t have to deal with as much stress and are able to focus on their mental health. A negative is that some projects tend to take a couple of days to finish when exams were only 90 minutes. Although exams were shorter time-wise the preparation for exams took up much more time than just 90 minutes.

BHS principal, Mr. Meloche, had a lot to think about when coming to a final decision for this issue. Meloche stated a few reasons why he thinks the change is a wise decision. One of them is that when he was a teacher he struggled with giving final exams. “I would have students who worked incredibly hard, did well on their tests, and then bombed their exam.” It never seemed fair to him. Additionally, he knew that his tests were more rigorous than the exams and gave him a better sense of their achievement.

When Mr. Melcohe also considered whether or not final exams were something that was necessary for students’ future education, he found that colleges also weren’t giving a lot of exams. Instead, there were a lot of collaborative projects and papers that replaced the traditional final exam.

Many students agree with Mr. Meloche when he says that this change reduces stress. Freshman Maddie Welsh stated, “I think no finals takes the stress off so many students, especially during this time, there’s so much going on in the world. With finals, the stress would be overwhelming.”

Not only do students think finals increase stress, senior Charlotte Wilson and sophomore Kylie Ritter both agreed that they also have a negative impact on your overall knowledge. Ritter states, “I just try to cram in everything we have learned in the semester, so I’m not actually absorbing all of the knowledge.”

Although this plan has alleviated stress levels this year, Mr. Meloche and the rest of the administration will be terminating final exams past the pandemic as well. Meloche says, “In fact, I’ve long thought they were antiquated and outdated. It was always part of my long term plan, however, the pandemic exposed the fact that they truly aren’t best practice. In talking with many staff members across BHS, there was a lot of support for this change. So we had a lot of conversations and ended up feeling that removing them was what’s best for students.”

Research confirms what Mr. Meloche stated. A 2018 research brief by PBLWorks found that “students in a project-based class showed greater academic success than their traditionally-taught classmates.” Junior Ben Pearce concurred stating, “I think project-based learning is better than final exams because there are more ways to show your thinking, and it is an easier way to retain all the information.”

This large initiative is a change that many people have been waiting for for a while, and the effects of it — including stabilized mental health levels for both students and teachers — seem to be extremely beneficial.