Teachers scoffed at the anomaly last year: midterms were cancelled.  The surprise was unexpected, but necessary considering many snow days had severely impeded teaching.  Students celebrated and praised the legendary Wayde Byard, the icon for county delays and cancellations.

Once more snow hit and cancelled most of the A-days this year, students turned to social media and demanded that midterms be cancelled again.  They succeeded, as midterms were again cancelled for 2015. Some posts, however, attacked the principle of midterms itself.

The purpose of midterms is to have a cumulative exam at the end of the semester, and while it is important to have cumulative review and tests, midterms may not be the best way to achieve this.  Midterms make up 20 percent of a student’s semester grade – the inconvenient percentage that will leave a semester grade fairly unaffected if the student does well on the test, or ruin a grade if the student tests poorly.  Multiply this by the seven classes each student takes, and the overwhelming stress is evident.

  There are already rumors of discussion among LCPS officials to abolish midterms in the near future, and contrary to what most students might assume, many teachers are leaning against midterms.  Midterm exams should not be required and structured by the county.  Teachers know how to best test the course material and how to best ensure that students get the lessons they need.  Therefore, the teacher would have the best judgement on how and when to test students. If they think that a cumulative exam at the end of each semester weighted more than regular tests is the best approach, then I would trust it.  These exams, just as other lessons and tests, should be given at the teacher’s discretion, and I trust that teachers will scale their tests fairly so that semester grades are not disproportionate towards a single county-mandated exam.