As the end of the quarter approaches, students and staff are faced with taking tests, grading and turning in assignments. Students may have four quizzes on the same day or are swamped with turning in late missing assignments. However, the stress begins to build up as the last days of the quarter mean the last days to change grades.
While there is a high proportion of students who complete their work on time, there is also a group of students who wait to submit their work or do it the night of the absolute deadline. Teachers may give a hard deadline to give students time to complete their assignments so they can get their grades submitted before the quarter, and students tend to use this deadline as a way to get in the work they didn’t do before. “I teach two connections classes, so I see students trying to get in late or missing assignments at the last minute, so they back themselves up with work and put themselves in a hole,” math teacher JD Marchand said.
While students attempt to get their missing assignments in, some students who have submitted their work on time still don’t get them graded until the end of the quarter. The mass amount of assignments given piles up quickly, leaving teachers more to grade, and more worry to students if their grades will drop when the grades are put in. Senior Julia Messing struggles to see her final grades, especially as some assignments are still not graded on the last day of the quarter. “My grades tend to change around the end of the quarter because as things pile up, a lot of grading is left until late,” Messing said.
Teachers have five classes, each with around 30 students, meaning that the teacher has to grade hundreds of pieces of work or quizzes that are turned in. It is easy for the work to get piled up, as there is so much to grade and to get done. “By spacing it out, and trying to get the last assessment in days before the end of the quarter, it gives us around six days to grade,” Marchand said.
Still, students’ stress levels rise as they wait for teachers to grade the final assignments of the quarter, determining the letter that is placed on their report card and sent home to parents. As the last few days pass, the jitters increase, and students are left to worry if they got a B or an A. “If I’m waiting for bigger assignments and tests to be graded, I’m definitely more stressed because it can change my grade a lot and I won’t be able to do anything about it at that point,” sophomore Emily Johnson said.
Students and teachers alike have different types of stress at the end of the quarter, but as the next quarter approaches, the restarting N/A grade cheers everyone up, meaning no grades or assignments have been put into the gradebook, giving students a fresh clean start for nine weeks.
