Elly Beauchamp | editor-in-chief
Graduation has been moved to May 31 this year, causing other dates throughout the semester to shift backwards one week or more.
A majority of the changes are due to the availability of venues for events like graduation and prom, as well as the rotation of all seven schools in the district.
“[Dates] are given to us; we have a facility that our district uses. We have seven high schools that will rotate as far as the pattern or the order in which they have their graduation ceremony and those dates are set between our district and the Freeman Coliseum and those dates are given to the campus,” assistant principal Sean Reno said.
Alone with graduation, AP and EOC testing has also been moved. AP testing will take place May 10 through 15 and EOC testing will take place May 4, 5 and 7.
“I think that in the long run it’s better so that you can just get everything out of the way because I feel like we push these ideas, like it’s going to happen way further in the year, but it actually ends up being closer than it actually is. So, if it was going to happen anyway, it’s better to get it out of the way,” senior Lana Mohamat said.
Finals week has also been moved, now May 25 through 28, which only leaves a week between AP testing and finals week.
“Even with that month gap it was still hard to manage everything, but now that it’s only a week apart, that’s crazy, like that just gave me, that just stress me out,” Mohamat said.
However, the administration remains confident at the students will be prepared and ready for the testing dates, even though they are close together.
“I believe that our classes are pretty geared around preparing, you know one of the focuses of our courses is to prepare our students for the AP exam and they won’t be on the same date, obviously. I think our students will find ways to prepare for both exams,” Reno said.
Prom is now taking place March 28.
“Prom is going to be a few weeks earlier than we usually have it. The school year ends at the end of May so it’s kind of pushing everything on the calendar a little earlier and the other thing is we have to coordinate with the JW Marriot and they were completely booked in the month of April, so the only days that they had available were in March,” English teacher Daniel Farias said.
Tickets will go on sale earlier as well to give students time to buy them.
“We’re probably going to start selling tickets at the end of February, as opposed to only in the month of March because we do have that spring break week and we lose that whole week and we try to do four weeks or at least 30 school days to give people enough time to be able to plan and save enough to be able to buy their tickets. So, we’ll probably start selling at the end of February so we have four weeks, including spring break, to sell,” Farias said.
