Imagine you are walking through the ever graceful halls to homeroom. You want nothing more than to relax and enjoy your classes, but you can’t because you have two major assessments today, and three more this week. This was an unfortunate reality for many students last year and one that administrators hope to combat with the introduction of an assessment calendar and a revamped No Assignments Due or Assessments (NADA) day system.
After receiving feedback from students last year regarding the stress they endured during weeks where students had many major assessments followed by a period with significantly less assessments, administration has put in place a new assessment calendar. In previous years, I noticed that it felt like every academic department decided to schedule assessments for the exact same week,
then proceed to schedule no assessments or the next week or so. This felt like an extremely problematic system because of how unevenly assessments were distributed. But now that departments are assigned specific days for assessments, I feel the assessments have truly evened out and things have not been quite as bad as last year.
This new system will positively impact the wellbeing of Marlborough students. Academically, it promotes genuine learning by preventing students from being overwhelmed with back-to-back assignments. In regard to wellbeing, the more balanced distribution of assessments helps reduce stress, anxiety and burnout by giving students the flexibility they need to manage their workload effectively. Additionally, the new assessment calendar should help with the issue of students being forced to prioritize certain assessments over others because they only have so much time they can dedicate to studying.
Last year, I was faced with this particular issue, and it became very difficult to juggle extracurriculars like tech week and sports with tests and roundtables. My struggle to keep up with everything led to me scoring below what I know I am capable of on assessments. I strongly believe it is unfair that students should be forced to sacrifice their grades to keep up with other commitments, and hopefully this assessment calendar is a step in the right direction for Marlborough.
Along with the assessment calendar, the new NADA day system will provide numerous benefits to students. Keeping NADA days after long breaks like Thanksgiving, Winter and Spring Break will allow students to rest and return refreshed, which supports mental health and wellbeing. By allowing students to select NADA days based on their specific religious or cultural observances, Marlborough is acknowledging and respecting the diverse backgrounds of the community. NADA days will also contribute to allowing the assessment day calendarto run smoothly. By providing students with NADA days when appropriate, the new NADA day system will not only respect the various cultural backgrounds of the Marlborough community, but also will allow the assessment calendar to function properly, rather than it being negatively affected by out-of-rotation NADA days.
While it is too early in the year to see the full impact of the assessment calendar, it appears to already yield positive results, and I believe that this new approach to crunch weeks and NADA days will help create a healthier, more inclusive and more balanced academic environment, one that respects both individual needs and the school’s educational goals. I hope that the new changes will remain policies so that I am able to come into the week excited, rather than stressed and anxious because of an unnecessarily ex-
cessive workload.
