On Thursday, January 16th, high school students in grades 9-12 will start taking their first finals of the year. Finals at Cannon Falls High School last for two days, and on the first day, high schoolers will be tested in their first four classes. The next day, these same students will take finals for their last three classes. In addition, there will be a makeup period following school lunch on Friday, January 17th. During this time, students can finish up their finals if they were unable to complete them in class; however, students that did finish their finals in the allotted time will be able to leave school early. 

Overall, the finals schedule is vastly different than the standard schedule that Cannon Falls high schoolers follow every day. Since everyone’s schedule gets split into two days during finals, the class periods are much longer than normal. To explain, each class period will last ninety minutes instead of the original fifty-four. Passing time will also change at the end of this week. Normally students get four minutes of passing time between each of their classes, but this number gets bumped up to ten minutes on Thursday and Friday. This time allows students to go to the bathroom, take a mental break, and/or do a last-minute quick study session. The finals schedule also affects the highschool lunch situation. During finals, everyone will have the same lunch and there will not be a first and second lunch division. Lunch will take place between the third and fourth period on the first day of finals, and after the last period on the second day.

Finals can be projects, presentations, or tests, but they traditionally count as a big part of a student’s grade. The teachers get to pick what their finals are and how much they will be worth, but traditionally they count for around 10% of a student’s grade. Math classes in particular however tend to count for more, because they are worth about 20% of one’s grade. Finals are a crazy time of year for Cannon falls high schoolers, but with a little bit of preparation, the levels of stress experienced by students can be decreased.