Southampton High School Officials Propose Week-Long Midterm Examinations

Southampton High School is moving forward with a plan to hold midterm examinations during a one-week period in January, the same week when mid-year Regents exams are administered.No classes would be held during the last week of January 2016, allowing students to use a full two-hour session—or longer, depending on the type of test or needs of the student—to take their midterms, which is one of the benefits of moving to such a testing model, High School Principal Dr. Brian Zahn said.The biggest drawback, however, is that students would lose five days of instructional time—something not all Board of Education members agreed on at a meeting on Tuesday, October 20.In a presentation to the board, Dr. Zahn said that the benefits of the one-week session outweighed the cons. For instance, if the high school opted for in-class midterms, students would have only 40 minutes to take their exams, and they could have more than one per day. Also, Dr. Zahn noted, teachers are often pulled from their regular classes to proctor exams, and the district would have to pay for substitute teachers to fill in for them.The high school has experimented with different testing methods over the last three years. In 2013 and 2014, midterms were taken over a half-week period, and last school year the exams were administered in class over a four-week period.Dr. Zahn said that this model will also give teachers the time to score the exams during the same week, allowing more opportunity to carefully examine the test results.Preparation for the new midterm week is already under way, the principal said, as it will take time for the district to coordinate bus routes and various student services that will be available that week.“Right now, we are actively planning. Putting together a testing week like this … there’s a lot of manpower that goes into it,” he said.