This year, the school district decided to change the format of the grading system. In the past years, the Rogers Public School District graded students every 9 weeks. Now, the district grades students every semester. This move is controversial among the students of Rogers schools. ] After almost a full semester with the change, Harrison Downard, Sophomore at Heritage, said, “the semester idea means that there isn’t as many new starts so to say.”

Then, after analyzing the workload this year, “the workload is the same as the past years. The only reason it may feel like more work is that there isn’t new starts.” said Downard. “I prefer semester because it helps me stay on my grades more so than quarterly grading system.”

Kallina Sims, Senior, had input on this subject as well. She vocalized her opinion,” the semester has made me slack a little more with my work since there is always more time to get my grade up.”

This was quite a different answer compared to Harrison’s response. “The semester idea doesn’t really help me being a Senior. It may help getting caught up on work, but that is from slacking in the first place.” Kallina said, “I don’t prefer either of them. The quarters got averaged to the semester anyway, so, technically, there isn’t any difference.”

The semester vs quarter concept is debated among the many students of the Rogers School District. The topic affects students in a variety of different ways depending on the students’ schedules and personalities. The true effects of this change will arise after this 2017-2018 school year is finalized.