Teacher made and state EOC exams are all being given on the same day in a new effort to reach the maximum amount of participation from students, according to Lee County High School principal Robert Newby.

This was a joint decision by LCHS and Southern Lee principal Amy Lundy. Both schools failed to reach the state requirement of 95% participation in state exams during the 2024-25 school year, make a change necessary in their eyes.

“We met and we hope that it’s a good idea,” Newby said. “We’ll find out next week, whether it’s a good idea or not. So we’ll get together after the exam to make sure that we did meet a 95% participation rate.”

Newby and Lundy agreed a big reason for the drop in participation was due to confusion over when students were supposed to be at school. Newby explained if a student’s friends were not scheduled to be at school for an exam, many students also were not going to school.

“I think it’s better for the kids because everybody will always be on campus for one day, because last year, some kids did not come because their friends didn’t have an exam
that week,” Newby said. “They didn’t come for our EOC state tests and those state tests are what give us our school grades.

Because of the change in exam schedule all exams for certain blocks will be given on the same days. All first block exams are given on Monday, second block exams are given on Tuesday. Third block exams will be administered on Wednesday, before fourth block exams are given on Thursday. Friday will remain a make-up exam day for anyone that misses their exam.

Spanish teacher Ines Beltran is apprehensive about the new schedule. Beltran says she preferred when LCHS gave teacher made exams over a two-day period, with first and second block exams one day, with third and fourth block exams the next day. End of Course testing would follow over the next five days.

“I think I like it better when the teachers made exams were during those two days with the three hour blocks,” Beltran explained. “That way the students could review for their EOC in their EOC classes longer, and it will give the kids who have good grace more time to be off. So I think that was like a bonus.”

In the end, Beltran says she is fine with whatever schedule the school produces. At the end of the day, it is up to whether students know the material, not when they are taking their exam.

“The ones who have the test might have a little bit of struggle because they’re obviously not the best grades,” the Spanish teacher explained. “They take more work, so I think it is more stressful for those students to have to take a test.”

Newby is hopeful this schedule will work for all students and produce the best scores possible for everyone. Friday is the final day of the fall semester. All students will be dismissed at 12:30 p.m. every day this week.