A Jones Student Government’s petition for finals to only improve grades received 1,000 signatures within twenty-four hours. Many students feel that this new policy is essential following the chaotic year students have endured.

“We originally had this policy two years ago when the pandemic started and we felt we should bring it back because of all the unprecedented events,” said Student Body President, Zoe Weinstein ‘22. “A lot of people are still having a hard time adjusting to in-person classes and  then we had an unaccounted for break where we almost lost a week of learning.”

Many other Chicago Publics Schools (CPS), including Lane Tech, Whitney Young, and Northside College Prep,  have already shifted plans for their finals to make up for disturbances in students’ learning.

“As the Student Body Vice President  I was getting a lot of pushback from people I knew who were asking why we were still having finals and that they had heard from friends at other schools that they weren’t having finals,” said Student Body Vice President Lizzie O’Brien ‘22. “They felt stressed out by the fact that we were having finals and many people felt like they hadn’t had enough review time.”

Due to Chicago Public Schools (CPS) canceling school for four days, many students felt like teachers have been left trying to rush through content to make up for the lost days.

“Teachers were pushing to have things like unit tests the class before finals instead of actually reviewing content,” said O’Brien.” Teachers still tried to push through the curriculum instead of stopping where we were at and working on review which became another stressor for students.”

Spreading this petition was mostly done through social media. The Student Government posted it on their social media and many students followed suit and reposted it.

“We mainly used Instagram to inform students about the petition,” said Weinstein. “Even if you don’t follow us on Instagram we were hoping that since so many people are re-posting it students will have at least seen it through a friend.”

The petition garnered a tremendous amount of support on social media because many students agreed with the policy.

“I signed the petition because I feel like this year already has been so much with the CPS versus CTU thing that cut an entire week of school. So having finals after that it just seems so unfair knowing that we lost a whole week of learning,” said Rodrigo Vega ‘24.”I thought it’d be good if we took finals and they didn’t hurt us.”

The student government also sent this petition and the response sheet to the Jones administration.

“We sent them an email with the response sheet so they could see it live as we were seeing it too,” says O’Brien.”We wanted to quantify a number of students to show that this is a really big issue that a lot of people are concerned about.”

As finals week rapidly approaches, many stressed students feel that the new policy would lessen the burden.

 “Students had about three to four weeks of no learning and a learning loss that we weren’t prepared for and obviously teachers weren’t prepared for so testing us with those circumstances seems unfair,” said O’Brien.