Final exams are around the corner. Students are busy studying and preparing for a stressful time of year. However, there is one topic on everyone’s minds, the possibility of incoming snow during final exams week.
“Personally I wouldn’t like it to snow because I feel like final exams would just be pushed back and it would just be a hassle if snow comes, especially because the road conditions would be poor which means I can’t go skiing,” said senior David Marsh.
Furthermore, Marsh commented that he would prefer not to take his final exams, but thinks that snow would not be the reason they are canceled.
“Well I prefer not taking my finals but I don’t think that’s the route the administration is going to go.”
Although many students are hopefully anticipating snow, it still could not be enough to cancel or even delay final exams.
The last time finals were officially canceled was back in 2017.
“January 2017 was probably the one where we had a snow event where the whole city was shut down for almost a week, and the principal at the time Mr. Hogan decided to cancel finals but give students the option to still take the final if they felt like it would benefit their overall grade,” Vice Principal Mr. Powers said.
Powers stated that the conditions need to be extreme in order for final exams to be canceled.
“If you remember that first year after COVID where it seems like everyone was catching COVID around final exams, and we did not cancel final exams. So it is unlikely that final exams will be canceled now, unless the city is shut down for 2 weeks.”
However, the administration does understand the possibility for a mild snow storm, and if that is the case, there are procedures in place to adjust start times accordingly or delay one day, based on the conditions.
“We have a mockup of a late final exam day, starting at 10:00am and monitoring what the weather pattern looks like,” said Powers.
But if there is enough snow to cancel the school day, the administration has a policy when that situation arises.
“Say next Tuesday is a snow day, we would probably continue the schedule of exams, but push Tuesday to next week,” said Powers.
In support of this, the administration also looks at the conditions of areas around the whole state of Oregon, to understand if some students or teachers cannot make it to school based on where they live.
“We have to base it off where students are at and also if other school districts are canceling school, we also need to see if our teachers are able to make it to school,” Powers said.
Many students see not taking their final exam as the best option, yet there are still final projects in classes that would not be canceled due to their digital nature.
“Most of your other classes that don’t have a final exam, you still have to turn in the final project, so you’re not off the hook.”
Jesuit is a college preparatory institution, which values preparing students for the challenges and situations that higher education will bring, which is why having final exams is very important to the school.
“As a college prep school we take education very seriously, so we want you to not only be prepared for the workload of your classes, but also be resilient when snow conditions delay your final exams, and how you prepare for that,” Powers said.
