I agree with Reena. When students are not given adequate time to study and prepare for any test/assessment, it will definitely have a detrimental impact on their grades no matter how good the student is. Currently, students at Ridge are working on multiple tests, quizzes and projects right up to the day before the midterm / finals, which leaves them very little time to prepare. Eliminating midterms and finals is not the real answer for reducing stress and improving student grades. If only students are given a reasonable time to prepare for any assessment, they will do much better than they are doing today and this in turn can reduce stress. Hopefully the administration will look into fixing this issue.

Wow!! This will surely prepare our students for college, and for life. We have prided ourselves on the quality of our district, and here we are dumbing it down. So, we want our students to become doctors, engineers etc. but they should not be stressed out with having to remember 3 months worth of material in High School.

What about subjects like mathematics and the sciences, where each chapter builds on the one before, and one can only test total comprehension of how the pieces fit together with a big exam? I am shocked and disappointed.

Really, if students in High School study for the little quizzes and tests, and do their weekly homework, then studying for a midterm should not be that stressful.

So kids will get to college and never have taken a final exam? So they'll learn to deal with that "stress" as college freshmen, with all the other stresses that entails? And a reason for this is to stop lazy teachers from reusing exams? (which they can still do with chapter or quarterly exams).

I agree with the comments posted above. I also do not think that the Board's decision to eliminate midterm and Final exams is beneficial to students who are about to go to college. Stress is a big, unavoidable part of life. We're doing our kids a disservice if we fail to teach them how to manage it. The elimination of both exams is not the solution. Teachers should instead provide students with a reasonably adequate time to prepare for those exams.

Students have different learning styles and strengths. Everyone against this welcome and modern change assumes that all children have the same strengths and abilities which is a very backward and ignorant assumption. The public schools serve a wide variety of the population. If you want to ensure your student is admitted into a top school and he/she is an excellent test taker, send him or her to Pingry which serves that segment of the population very well. This change is not "dumbing down" Ridge. It is permitting students who have different learning styles to compete on a more level playing field.

Anonymous- if a child has different strengths and weaknesses that result in difficulty with test taking, the time for preparing for that type of assessment is high school. Like it or not, there are finals in colleges at all levels, from community to the Ivy league, and for many professions and licenses, so self knowledge is vital to choosing an individual's educational and career path. sounds like you are the one who is stressed over academic performance and competition, an issue that wasn't raised in any of the comments.

This issue has nothing to do with preparing for that type of assessment. It has everything to do with the way a visual learner retains information versus an auditory learner. And clearly the modern educational environment, including many colleges, are recognizing that visual learners are unfairly compromised in a traditional test taking environment and that it is not fair to subject everyone to a means of assessment that clearly benefits the auditory learner over the visual learner. Many visionaries and highly successful individuals are visual learners who have been compromised by the traditional educational environment which is designed around auditory learners.

The other posters said it well. This administration never ceases to disappoint me.

Hey Anonymous, how are all of these changes that are taking us from "Traditional Learning" to the "Modern Educational Environment" working out for us? From one generation to the next, we have graduates who are less and less prepared for the real world. Our graduates are becoming less and less prepared for private sector jobs where they are tested everyday.

Anonymous - as a parent of a visual learner and an auditory learner, I am very much aware of the different strengths and learning styles. Yes, my visual learner has more difficulty with all tests, including quizzes and midterms. Fortunately, strong executive skills and a focus on study strategies offsets this difficulty. My auditory learner is an excellent test taker, but has weak executive skills which results in lower grades on hw/projects/writing assignments. Both types of learners need development of the skills that they are weaker in as preparation for college. So, I fail to understand how elimination of mid-terms and final exams is beneficial to the visual learner if they get to college and are not prepared for exams. With a child in college, I have not seen a shift away from exams yet.

Grades are more heavily derived from tests. You are advocating that your auditory learner should have a leg up during the college admissions process. I believe, as does the administration, in a more level playing field.

not quite - grades are weighted differently depending on the class. My visual learner with strong executive skills has a "leg up" in the admission process compared to my auditory learner with weak executive skills. Strong executive skills are critical to school success. I am advocating for preparing all students for college success, so in addition to keeping midterms/finals there should be efforts to develop skills for both the auditory and visual learners - test taking strategies, note taking, study skills, organizational skills, etc.

Anonymous - A level playing field for whom? Are you saying it's not fair for those kids who for some reason aren't as prepared as their peers in taking their midterms/finals? Why let the many pay for the sins of a few? Has this administration given much thought to that?

This issue, as I articulated above, has nothing to do with one student not being as "prepared" as the other. The Administration, and other education professionals and even colleges, understand the issue. I applaud our Administration for having the professional sophistication to identify this as an issue. SZ - it is a fact that the grades given for most if not all classes are primarily based on test scores. You write that your auditory learner has "excellent" test taking skills. Therefore he/she has an advantage in the college admissions process. Why should auditory learners have a leg up in the college admissions process because the timing of the tests suits them better than the visual learner? And ... why are you advocating for increasing the pressure in your children's lives? Did you not see The Race To Nowhere?

Anonymous - 504 Accommodations are used to level the "playing field" for students that need support, such as visual learners that might have auditory processing issues. They should qualify for extra time, in addition to other support that might be needed so they can perform better on tests. These accommodations are available in MS, HS, college, standardized testing and on SAT testing. I am not increasing the pressure in my child's life, I am preparing for the skills needed to succeed in college. How would you know that the grades given for most, if not all, classes are primarily based on test scores? What about essays, homework, class participation, projects? Aren't they part of determining grades, especially for classes like English, History, Psychology, etc.? I saw Race to Nowhere and I do not pressure my children. I fully expect that my children will not get "A's" on every test and quiz or in every class, so the message is study, learn different study strategies, seek the help of teachers and do all hw to offset any lower grades on tests/quizzes. I also encourage taking a couple AP classes in total, so I also don't consider that pressure, just college preparation. The MS and HS need to do a better job of developing organizational/study type skills in all students so they can be successful in school and better prepared for college. Not all students develop or mature along the same time horizon, and some need more support than others to develop these skills.

Are you advocating that every child who is not an excellent auditory learner should have a 504 plan? I am not sure the schools could handle that volume.

It is said that 65% of the population is comprised of visual learners including Steve Jobs, Da Vinci, and Spielberg. Why are we speaking of 504 plans?

Making self-esteem more important than self-knowledge doesn't really work in producing confident and competent young adults. Just as the little leaguer who keeps striking out, despite parental shouts of "good cut", comes to realize he won't be playing for the Yankees someday, kids who don't test well should come to realize that a college major or a career that requires the skills of test taking might not be the best choice, or that they will somehow need to compensate for that weakness. Covering it up by not having to take finals so that a kid can get into a highly competitive college seems like a recipe for disaster, and one for which all the kids will suffer. Everyone has areas of weakness, be they physical, artistic, intellectual, etc. , and sometimes you just have to accept that , go with your strengths and realize that you don't have to go to Harvard to have a happy and successful life. Eliminating finals/midterms doesn't take stress off kids, just postpones it to college.

Laura, are you an education professional? A child who does not excel at test-taking does not need a mid-term or final to indicate that to him or his teachers. He or she knows. But why should the timing of a test benefit a select few? It is like requiring every student to submit an art portfolio as part of the college admissions process. Clearly those who have absolutely no artistic talent will fail. Rote memorization of a years long worth of material is the same. Why should every child be subject to that measurement tool for college admissions when clearly only a segment of the population benefits from that criteria? That is exactly the reason that 750 colleges no longer require the SAT as an admissions factor. If we continue this outdated process in our schools than may I suggest that we require every child at Ridge to submit an art portfolio in his/her Junior year to be included in his/her overall GPA? That would seem to be a fair result given what you suggest. Let's let the education professionals decide what is a fair result for everyone, not a select few.

Agree to disagree, as do many parents, and professionals.

The biggest reason that the SAT score is optional at some colleges is mainly to increase URM enrollment. SAT tests favor the better school districts and wealthier students who can pay for the test as well as expensive prep courses. It has nothing to do with visual versus auditory learners.

Also, the suggestion about an art portfolio.........just made you lose all credibility.

Horrible idea. While Ridge was stressful, it prepared me for the stressful reality of college life and education.

And tests do not always determine the majority of a grade. In high school economics, I made D's on every exam, but pulled off a C average thanks to writing assignments and homework portion of my final grade.

Part of what made Ridge a great high school is that students that graduated from there were better prepared for college. College is a huge adjustment to begin with and now we want to throw newly graduated people into an arena when they've learned how to sit for an exam? Having a test once a week does not prepare you for studying for material that you haven't looked at in months it teaches teenagers that you can learn something and forget it next week. That is not a way to learn. Having graduated from this district I remember taking midterms and finals in 8th grade to better prepare ourselves for what's ahead. Learning those lessons so early on had it ingrained in me how to handle the stress and spread out the studying so I actually learned concepts not just memorized them to regurgitate them on a test.