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Final exams now optional for some students at Williams High

WILLIAMS, Ariz. - The Williams Unified School District (WUSD) Governing Board agreed to allow school administrators to implement a new finals policy on a trial basis at Williams High School at their Oct. 21 meeting.

Superintendent/High School Principal Rick Honsinger asked the board to consider modifying the finals policy in the spring semester of 2016 as incentive to increase participation and positive behavior at the high school.

"I noticed when I came here that Williams High School has an attendance problem," Honsinger said.

The policy would allow students to be excused from semester final exams if a student accomplishes two out of three of the following criteria:

• The student has two or fewer absences in the class for the semester. Excused and unexcused absences are included. School sponsored activities are not included;

• The student has an A grade in the class prior to finals; or

• The student has no disciplinary referrals on record in any class for the semester.

The first two requirements are class specific, and the last is for all classes. For example if a student has five absences in period one, and only two absences in period two the student could opt out of the period two final if they have an A in the class or no disciplinary referrals in any class. The period one final could still be opted out of if the student had an A in the class and no disciplinary referrals in any class.

Students who can opt out may instead choose to take the final to increase their grade without penalty. The exam score would not negatively affect the student's semester grade. All of the finals are worth 10 percent of the semester grade.

Honsinger said he has experience in using the finals policy as a motivator and said many of his past students liked the choice of being able to opt out of finals.

He recently met with the site council at the high school to address the attendance problem. The council is made up of teachers, parents and select students. Honsinger suggested using the finals policy as a motivator and the council agreed it would be good to try.

"We discussed what some options were," Honsinger said. "I had some experience in using the finals as the carrot."

Honsinger said he is aware that some parents think that taking finals in high school is important. He said that testing is important, but feels that students at WHS are already taking a lot of tests.

"We have formative tests within our curriculum, we have basic weekly tests, bench mark tests that measure where we are with the standards and of course the AZ Merit test," Honsinger said. "These students know a lot about high stakes tests."

Honsinger said he believes that lack of attendance is hurting many of the kids at the high school. He said that part of the reason the school went to a four-day school week was so students and parents could use Fridays for appointments and other needs. He also said many students are skipping school for no logical reason.

"Its something we can give up and use as a reward for the kids," Honsigner said. "If I can get attendance, good grades, and good behavior out of the kids...it's a good trade off."


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