A new exemption policy has been implemented this year that will affect all students who are exempting a midterm. Under the new rules, all students must be present at school for at least four hours even if they aren’t taking a midterm or be marked absent.

In years past, while this policy was still in place and students were allowed to sign in at the beginning of the day and leave right after that. This year, however, all five high schools in the district have put mandatory attendance into effect, partly because the school loses money for each absent student.

“There’s absolutely no point in us coming to school when we are exempting because we probably aren’t even going to do anything there,” Darrien Garcia ‘15 said. “And anyways, the calendar resets at the end of the semester, so it’s pointless to threaten us with absences.”

Students and staff alike have been angered by the waiving of this popular tradition, especially seniors who planned on going off-campus with their friends or students who were traveling with their family over winter break.

“I want to be able to go home and relax and be done with the semester if I am not taking a midterm,” Swetha Jayavelu ’15 said. “It’s a tradition that you can’t come to school if you are exempting and it was like that for 3 years!”

However, there were some students who didn’t think that there was that much wrong with the new approach, thinking that there were some benefits to having to come to school when you were exempting.

“The district loses money for each person who doesn’t come to school, so looking at it in a different perspective, the cost outweighs the benefits,” Joshua Cambridge ‘16 said.

All hope is not lost though. Administrators are looking into possible fixes for when final exams roll around. However, no certain decisions have been made right now and it might be a while before a compromise can be made.