Some of the most stressful times in a student’s school year are midterms and finals for classes. This is why Roswell High School has an exemption policy that allowed students to be able to not take the tests and not have it affect their grade. However, to have this as an option the students had to qualify in certain areas. This year, the school introduced a new policy: “to be eligible for an exemption, the student must not have been absent from school, or signed out early, a combined total of more than five (5) times during the semester, regardless of the class period. Of the five (5) absences, one can be considered “unexcused” to be eligible 21 to exempt. In addition, a student who wishes to exempt may have no ISS/OSS, no more than 2 Friday Schools, and no academic dishonesty violations.” (20, Student Handbook 2019-2020). This is quite different from last years policy: “students with a passing grade, no more than 3 excused absences and no unexcused absences, no ISS/OSS, no more than 2 Friday Schools, and no academic dishonesty violations may exempt the following number of final exams each semester” (20, Student Handbook 2018-2019).

The student body feels as though that these new policies are unfair and should be changed. Many feel as if the whole day is counted off then there is no point of coming to school that day at all.

 “If I have a doctor’s appointment, I don’t see the point of coming to school at all then if it is going to count as a full day,” said sophomore Kendall Gilreath. 

Others are more mad about the fact that they go to school on a daily basis but have appointments to go to that only can happen during school hours. 

“I don’t believe it fair to us students, who actually go to school everyday, to have a whole day counted as an absence for an appointment,” stated sophomore, Alli Wiggins. 

However, I understand that many students would skip certain classes and only go to ones that they had finals in so that they could exempt which became a big issue and was why they had to change the policy. This is not fair for the students that actually went to class everyday and didn’t skip any and now do not have the ability to exempt finals because of a dentist or doctors appointment to go to.

 Another issue in general is that the exempting is based on absences at all. The school states in the Student Handbook that “Student Health Services requires that students who are sick, contagious and/or have a fever greater than 100.4 must not be sent to school. In order to return to school, a student should be fever free for at least 24 hours. If a student becomes ill at school, the student must report to the clinic immediately. In the event a student runs a fever, has a potential contagious illness or a more serious health problem while at school, the parent will be notified to pick up his child immediately.”  I have been in many classes where a student has been so sick but because of the exemption policy, they choose to stay in class because they do not want to have to take the final. That is then putting other students and teachers at risk to get sick as well. Students will go to school rather the school says that can or can’t based on their health because they want to be able to exempt their final. 

I believe that the exemption policy should either go to the previous one, which is done by period or do based on grade in that class. This would allow it to be fair to all students and allow for students to be able to have appointments and not have to worry about being absent. I think this would also allow students to stay home when sick and not risk the chance of other students getting sick which is better for the student body.  I think that the student body would find that those policies are more fair.