More than 10 years have lapsed since Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) removed required midterm and final assessments in high school courses. In the years prior to 2015, LCPS allotted one week at the end of each semester for the administration of final and midterm exams. These weeks were colloquially known as “midterms week” or “finals week.” When this structure ended, these special weeks morphed back into standard school weeks. As the first semester of the 2025-26 school year comes to an end, and some students and teachers prepare for end-of-semester exams amid the chaos of a normal week, some are left wondering whether LCPS’ decade-old decision was a step in the wrong direction. 

The pre-2015 exam week functioned much differently in order to accommodate the number of exams students were required to complete. Students could take no more than two exams per day, and the week functioned with a half-day schedule. Teachers used their afternoons to grade after students went home for the day. In 2015, after a series of snow days had cancelled the midterms week, LCPS made the decision to remove the week from future schedules entirely. Midterms and finals are no longer mandated, and only dual enrollment (DE) classes, which often consist of two semester-long courses, require a final exam at the end of each semester. Instead of final exams that account for 20% of a student’s total grade, LCPS opted for more frequent testing that could accurately assess students in their understanding of each unit. A few other teachers in advanced classes administer finals and midterms, though they are no longer considered necessary. 

Biology teacher Mrs. Candace King remembers her high school years, during which she had to participate in mandatory midterms and finals. She had only been a substitute teacher within LCPS for one year when the school district relaxed the exam requirement. Now, as a DE teacher, King is required to administer final exams in coordination with Northern Virginia Community College’s (NVCC) policies. Among other things, she appreciates final exams as a way to close out the semester and make sure students fully grasp the course material. “I think it does close out one semester nicely, and it gives a defined time of when the test is happening. It keeps teachers from starting new stuff for the next semester before. It’s like, we finish everything, we take a final, and then we all start fresh,” King shared. 

In King’s research and academic biology classes, where she does not assign her students any cumulative exams, she notices a lack in their comprehension compared to her DE classes. This becomes especially tricky when approaching the required Standards of Learning (SOL) biology exam. “I think sometimes my intro bio students get really overwhelmed when it comes time to study for the SOL because they haven’t looked back at unit one since September. Now all of a sudden it’s May, and they have a test on it,” King explained. “A final kind of forces you to be accountable for it as you go.”

Though she never experienced it during her high school years, senior Kate Verry also desires a return to the former midterm week structure. Verry’s schedule is filled to the brim with upper level classes, including DE Geospatial Science, DE Biology, and Advanced Placement (AP) Physics. In all three of these classes, a midterm exam is administered—either due to DE requirements or teacher discretion. However, Verry finds that in the AP classes where she does not take a midterm, she ends up feeling in over her head come AP exam season in May. “AP classes are basically finals, and without a midterm after the first semester, I won’t have reviewed the content from early in the year already, making it a lot more studying to do,” Verry elaborated. 

Not all students view cumulative exams as needed in every class. Senior Dexter Day takes midterm exams in his DE Physics and English classes, but he stands firm in his belief that they should not be necessary for non-college level courses. “[If] you’re taking a college class, you do stuff that you would do in college, right? You have midterms, finals, all that stuff. But I think for normal Gen. Ed classes, I just don’t think that it makes sense, other than maybe an SOL freshman or sophomore year,” Day reasoned. According to Day, even though finals can effectively prepare students for their future college educations, enforcing the same tests in high school can become a source of unnecessary stress in the classroom. “Students learn the best when they’re learning just to learn, rather than learning for a test. It feels more like work, because you’re not really learning for yourself, you’re just learning for the test.”