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11 | O akville B eaver | T hursday,N ovem ber 25,2021 insidehalton.com ing experienced nothing even close to this high, high stakes piece of their university educa- tion," said Lourenco. School board representatives have expressed sympathy about the issue. They also say that teachers are working with stu- dents around the board on exam- related skills like studying tech- niques and multiple-choice an- swering strategies. Trustee Marvin Duarte under- stands the concerns of parents and students. "I do understand the challeng- es of going to university having kids who just went to university and, yes, the exams are going to be tough and, yes, the universi- ties are making the effort to ac- commodate our students. Our students are resilient too and are doing a good job, but we will try to do our best," said Duarte. "I don't know what else our staff can do to make it better, but we will look at continuous improvement." Superintendent Jeff Crowell said at the Nov. 16 board meeting that they are currently develop- ing a webinar, which will be avail- able in early 2022. "This webinar will allow stu- dents to learn about how exams are typically structured and what strategies can be used to prepare and study for exams. This webi- nar will be shared through schools with parents as well as students and posted on our board website," said Crowell. Critics argue that it's hard to replace the practical effect of ac- tually taking a traditional exam. By removing the formal exam, it has unfairly put local students in the position of heading off to uni- versity significantly less pre- pared for the challenges they will face. "I feel like school boards focus on things like graduation rates. Well, that's great if you graduate high school. That's great. But it doesn't stop there, right? If you go off to university and you fail your first year that's not success, and these exams are just worth too much," said Lourenco. STORY BEHIND THE STO- RY: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous disruption all across society. We wanted to look at one smaller change the pan- demic has caused and examine what that could mean for the region's youth. NEWS Continued from page 10