Our main goal as students is being able to finish the year off with good grades. Because of this, we are inclined to the idea of earning exemption from our exams.

In Coppell High School, freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors have been able to enjoy this privilege of exemption from final exams their second semester. But this school year is different.

According to the new CHS exemption policy, students can be exempt from several of their classes, but not all of them, unless they are a freshman in which case they have to take all of their exams. In the case of sophomores, they are exempt from one exam, juniors two exams and seniors three exams.

Students may only be exempt when they meet the requirements of the exemption policy. This includes a minimum grade of 85 in the class they wish to be exempt from and no more than three absences.

The current exemption policy allows students from different grade levels to be exempt from one exam (sophomores), two exams (juniors) or three exams (seniors), CHS associate principal Sean Bagley said “This is so not everybody is exempt.”

Not only is this requirement really unfair, but there are other measures that are not fair either.

School absences are also an issue. Students are only able to be exempt if they have two or less excused absences in their block classes or three in their 55-minute “skinny period” classes. If a student has even one unexcused absence or more than four tardies, they will not be able to be exempt. However, many people have a medical condition they cannot control.

“I used to have anemia, and sometimes some symptoms come back, which makes me have to leave school to go to the doctor sometimes,” CHS sophomore Sofia Sanz said. “This has made it very difficult for me to be exempt from exams because even though my absences are justified, they still count as absences, therefore I can’t be exempt even when I have good grades in most of my classes.”

In my case, I was born with a heart disease that causes more medical problems along the way and every time that I miss school, I bring back a note from my doctor with the date of the absence that proves that I was at the doctor.

Exemptions should not depend on absences when there is a medical issue behind it because many are born with birth problems. There are many dedicated students that are not going to be able to exempt exams because of this new exemption policy.

Students that miss class because of medical issues should be exempt but also should maintain an average of 90 and above in their classes so they still have a requirement for exempting, therefore even though they have absences, they still have an opportunity to be exempt.

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