Ten days ago was the last time junior Jilly Dos Santos shared a class with any seniors; she would undoubtedly would say that with their leave, the classrooms have become quite empty, and the curriculum has become different.
“Well, I take two classes with a majority of seniors, AP spanish and college algebra, and for algebra we’re doing a lot of ACT prep and for Spanish it’s just me and my teacher left so we’re just doing a kind of mini unit on Argentina because I’m from there and I just like to learn about things like that,” Dos Santos said. “Although I know that for algebra, the ACT prep would be really helpful for the future and all, I would prefer to just have an AUT, but for Spanish I enjoy learning about Argentina, so I don’t mind.”
With only five days left, many are excited for the relaxation that comes with the upcoming season. But the seniors got a head start before everyone else. Usually every year seniors get out a week before their underclassmen. However, this year, they got out a few weeks earlier than everyone else because of all of the snow days from earlier in the year, which left all of the underclassmen that were in the same classes as them with almost three weeks left without any significant work to do.
It’s not unusual to see juniors, and sometimes even sophomores, in the same classes as seniors because Columbia Public Schools and Rock Bridge are usually flexible with a student’s course regiment. So for example, this year, seniors in CPS got out on May 16. This means at before that date, any of the classes that had a majority of seniors in them had to finish any EOC (end of course exam), and finals they had.
But for students who aren’t seniors, that leaves almost three weeks left of school to do something completely different. So what do these kids do for those three weeks? Well, Madeline Harl, a junior in precalculus, has a pretty good idea. After taking her final almost two weeks ago, there’s no rest for the class, which loss 10 seniors after the 16th, leaving only 13 of them left. Even in the absence of the seniors they still have to do a completely new unit and are going to be taking a test at the end of the year, although it won’t count as much as their final.
“Well, I was pretty disappointed when we found out we had to do a completely different unit, and the seniors got to get excused from it, but I guess it’s whatever, like I can’t do anything about it anyways,” Harl said.
Junior Mariah Journey, one of the only 6 juniors in college algebra class, also said she’s already finished her finals, but has a different reaction to Harl’s.
“Since we’ve already finished our final for the course, we’ve now moved on to ACT prep, which is a little weird since most of us should have already finished that stuff by now,” Journey said, “but it’s better than having to anymore algebra.”
For classes with seniors, the case seems to be that although the seniors have already left, the underclassmen that are still at school have to do extra work or units. But for Aaron Ghidey, one of the 17 students left in his sports medicine class says the case seems to be a little different for him.
“Since we have already done our final and have only like half of the people left in my sports medicine class, we aren’t doing much work, and it’s pretty nice,” Ghidey said. “Our teacher still teaches us, but it’s like core classes we might have an interest in and want to learn more about.”
With only a week left of school, students are beginning to settle into the new norm without the seniors, and are waiting in anticipation for next thursday, the last day of school. “All I have left are a few finals for tuesday, and then I’m finally done with my junior year!” Aaron said. “And after this, all I have left is my senior year of high school, which is going to be awesome.”
By Ronel Ghhidey
