WOODBURY — As the week-long spring vacation came to an end April 22, the stress piled back onto Nonnewaug High School students, and preparation for year-end tests started to move forward.
Henry Strzelecki, a freshman at Nonnewaug, doesn’t feel prepared for the long month left before summer, and he’s stressed about makeup work on top of a series of tests.
“It’s annoying because a lot of people miss school the week before [April break],” Strzelecki said. “I’m still doing makeup work, and that added on to taking exams is a lot.”
Some students will take four sets of exams during the final few weeks of school. Advanced Placement tests started May 6 and run through May 17. The NGSS exam, a science test that Connecticut requires for juniors, is May 20-21. Then, the last of three rounds of NWEA standardized tests follows — English is May 22-23, science is May 28-29, and math is May 30-31. Finally, final exams wrap up the last week of school, June 10-14.
Students, regardless of whether they’re seniors or freshmen, try to prepare for the multiple tests, but the thought of having a stress-free summer, getting tan and having fun fills their minds instead.
Jadyn Heron, a freshman, feels that the end of school should be a weight off of students shoulders, but instead, it’s more.
“It’s really hard ending the last couple days of school taking finals because I feel like you should be able to have fun and hang out with your classmates,” Heron says. “Taking finals is just so stressful and draining even though the end of the year is supposed to be fun.”
Ben Guerette, an AP teacher, is on the same side as students with summer filling students’ minds, but he also students also know how important the tests are, so he’s not too worried.
“Thankfully they know how important [end-of-year tests] are. I don’t have to convince them of it; that makes it easier,” Guerette says. “But I think we’re all seeing how sunny it is, and feeling how great having a week off [in April] was and just thinking it would be wonderful if we could just keep going and not come back. For AP, I think a lot of students are looking forward to having it done. It definitely took a few days to snap back into AP mode.”
Kelly Nichols, an English teacher, agrees with her colleague about the stress of the end of the year.
“[The spring is] relaxing, but I feel like it’s both exciting and also a little stressful,” Nichols says. “It’s exciting because it’s nice outside and you can see the finish line. But it’s also hard because some students are just so excited for summer, especially freshmen, because they haven’t had a lot of experience with exams yet — and we want to make sure they can feel prepared.”
