The holiday season is almost upon us and for the first time in Cal High history this also means that final exams will end before students go on break next week.

Typically, Cal students have taken their first semester finals in late January after the winter break. But thanks to the district’s new schedule which began this year,finals begin tomorrow with the bulk of finals coming next week.

The new district-wide schedule changes were spurred by a proposal that came from a committee consisting of parents, administrators and staff. The committee met and discussed less stressful ways to help students succeed in more efficient ways during finals.

A solution that they came up with was to modify the schedule to have finals before winter break.

“The primary goal of the new schedule was to prevent kids from losing some of the content that they obtained and to also give students a less stressful environment over winter break,” said assistant principal Catie Hawkins.

The theory behind this solution was that having finals before the break would prevent students from forgetting everything they had learned, and allowing them to really enjoy a two-week break.

The modified schedule might allow for students to be more organized in their preparation for finals, and thus, perform better.

“I think the new schedule is nice because you don’t have to worry about studying and you can just enjoy the holidays,” said junior Sarah Wong.

Although student reception to the schedule changes have been mixed. The consensus seems to primarily be that the finals week schedule shift is a positive change.

“It’s a lot easier on me during winter break because then I can actually enjoy break without stressing about finals,” said sophomore Anusha Manapragada.

The current schedule is also a way to help students be prepared for the way college campuses run their exams. Almost every American college and university, such as Harvard and UC Berkeley, use exams before break as a downtime and relaxation mechanism for students.

This way students can actually enjoy their time with loved ones instead of building up anxiety for finals.

The new finals schedule has mixed responses from teachers.

For some, the schedule is a way to have more consistent time to spend with students in preparation for finals. But for others, the schedule is an inconvenience because it forces teachers to wrap up a certain unit and pushes them to start preparing for new lessons in the upcoming semester, which begins Jan. 9.

“The only thing different for me is normally when I come back from winter break we’re in the middle of a unit and I’m ready to go with the next lesson,” said English teacher Stacey Quick. “But now it’s a new semester with a whole new unit, so I just have to make sure I’m prepared the teacher work day after finals.”

The new finals schedule puts the students who would’ve used those extra three weeks to study a disadvantage. For some students, finals after winter break gave them much more time to prepare and review for the upcoming exams.

Although the new schedule may be a way to give some students a stress-free break, other students are deprived of their extra study time.

“Personally, winter break was really useful to study for finals and it helped me get an A on most of them,” said sophomore Harshana Somas.

Whether students are ready for the new schedule, finals week will be coming up sooner than usual, so be prepared.