Students missed 11 days of school due to Hurricane Helene and Milton. Almost a fourth of a quarter of lessons untaught. Although teachers have made it clear that students should make it their first priority to stay safe, students still have to take their AP/IB/AICE at the national date.

Some teachers plan to cut nonessential lessons out to prioritize important material.

“I’ve had to shift a few things around and really focus in on the key aspects that they’ll need for the assessment. We’ve eliminated a couple of the fun October activities and focused more explicitly on what they’ll need to master the standards,” said Lindsay Rubenstein, AICE general paper and global perspectives teacher.

When it comes to changes in lesson plans, some teachers plan on making everything fit in the condensed time period.

“I just have to adjust and slide everything forward. Fortunately, they gave us an extension with the first quarter, so we still have that week and a half,” said Gerald Batista, the IB and AP Government teacher.

Even with less time, learning all the material is still crucial.

“Because the AP exam dates do not change, I am still bound to get all of our content completed within the semester. What I plan to do is try to combine some of the assignments that we have into blocks where I can make everything fit that way, we still get our curriculum done and we’re ready for our exam in May,” Batista said.

With AICE exams taken in the spring, AICE/AP test coordinator Sherly Gervais states the three options students can choose to do.

“I was in contact with our district coordinators and students have the option to take one portion of the exam and get the other portion with special considerations so they will only be scored on one portion of the exam. Or they can still test for both components of the exam, and I can still put it in as special consideration for the ones this week because they were disadvantaged due to the hurricane and that would be factored into their score. Or students can decide to not test this round and wait to test in the spring,” Gervais said.

Just like the AP exams, the AICE exam is conducted by Cambridge and taken at the same time with no makeups

“If you miss the day you have to test in the next testing series which is in the spring while is why we are doing the whole special considerations to help the students out with their scoring,” Gervais said.

While there is a lot to catch up on, teachers say focusing on recovering from the storm should be their first priority.

“My heart goes out to everyone because everyone has a different situation they’re dealing with,” Gervais said. “I say do what’s best for you and I don’t feel like I want to pressure students to make any choices because everyone is going through something different so I want the students to talk to their parents and make the decision that’s best for you and we will support them 100 percent.”

This story was originally published on RHS Today on October 21, 2024.