As the third quarter comes to an end in early April, the high school administration has decided to revoke the long-awaited senior privilege of final exam exemptions. In the past, seniors have been exempt from final exams if they have a 90 percent average or higher, but from now on all seniors will have to take all their exams regardless of their final grade.

In recent discussions amongst academics, these exemptions have been slammed for numerous reasons. By exempting seniors from taking these tests, there is no final guarantee that they have learned the course material. They may not learn the material as well in the long-term since they only studied in the short term for unit tests. It also doesn’t prep them for college where there is unlikely to be exemptions of any kind, plus it causes more divisiveness between the classes.

Understandably, this new policy has not been well-met with this year’s seniors.

“Other than being able to leave if you have senior lounge you have no privileges senior year,” senior Liz Martin said. “I probably won’t put any effort into classes because I have to take the final anyway.”

“I’ll drop out of high school,” senior Edith Palomino said. “Or, I could just stop trying in all my classes in general. Senioritis is real, kids.”

“After three years of dealing with seniors brag about it, we get ripped off,” senior Joe LoDuca said. “We don’t get to satisfy the jealousy by exacting the same treatment we got onto others.”

However, there are some students that have come to terms with the new policy and appreciate the reasoning behind it.

“Personally, I think senior exemptions are unfair to other grades,” senior Blake McHale said.

Undoubtedly, there will be more complaints flowing into the Board of Education in the next couple of weeks, but the decision has been in the works for several months and will not change for the remainder of the school year. There is hope exemptions will return next year and the issue will face more consideration, but seniors this year are out of luck.

Alex Houdeshell, Staff Writer

Senior Alex Houdeshell is the Editor-in-Chief of the 2016-2017 Horizons yearbook. In addition to running cross country, indoor track, and track and field, she is the President of Operation Smile. In her spare time, she enjoys playing hackey sack or ultimate frisbee, reading Time magazine, and making a lot of milkshakes.