The West Bend Current

Advanced Placement teachers in West Bend are feeling tight on time due to the holiday break.

The West Bend School District’s 2024 winter break was abnormally long at 16 days instead of the usual 13. With only a week and a half after break, semester exams will quickly take place, further backtracking the high school’s AP classrooms. AP classes are on a strict curriculum to prepare the students for their final exams, so even a few days can cause setbacks for the teachers.

AP Micro is especially impacted. Unlike most AP classes, AP Micro is only a semester long. Students don’t have the time later in the year to make up for the days shortened by the extended break. Along with having to be prepared for their exam, they also need to take their final unit test during their exam period.

“It is a tighter process and is not ideal,” said Dave Talma, East AP Micro teacher.

AP classes work in many activities to prepare the students for success in a more engaging way. However these activities take time, which means teachers and students have had to skip some of them this semester.

A typical solution to solve the short on time issue is by removing some or parts of assignments where the topics were not covered in full detail. Michael Lewandowski, East AP US History teacher, is considering how to fit in as much material as he can in the shortened time.

“I have to adjust the way I teach a little bit, I have to take out some of the activities in class,” Lewandowski said.

Many of the activities that would help introduce topics or engage students had to be replaced with lecture-based learning, which is not always ideal. Quizzes were also re-evaluated and adjusted to better suit the modified curriculum.

Both Lewandowski and Talma said that they don’t think that the longer break will have too much of an impact on the academic success of students, due to the changes they have made to the curriculum.