As Advanced Placement (AP) testing comes to a close, Jefferson students are entering their last week of standardized testing, this time the Virginia Standards of Learning tests (SOLs). Students in each grade level have at least one SOL. Students who are not taking SOLs can choose to either come to school late after the SOL block, or go to a study hall.

The freshmen and seniors will take their math and geosystems SOLs, respectively, on Monday, while the juniors and sophomores are on the annual humanities (HUM) I and II field trip to Washington, D. C. The freshmen also have a biology SOL on Wednesday. The sophomores take the chemistry test on Tuesday and world history on Friday, and the juniors take reading on Thursday.

Students who opt to come to school on time usually either have to take the bus or have assignments to complete. Many juniors, for example, will use the time to complete their wave labs for physics, which are due at the end of the week.

“It’s hard to fit in all of the labs during class periods, and because of other commitments during eight periods those don’t work either, so I’m doing them during the morning study hall,” junior Emily Rogers said.

Other students who can get rides and don’t have work to do are taking the extra time to sleep after two long, stressful weeks of AP testing.

“Giving students the option to come to school late was very kind of the faculty,” senior Alex Atanasov said. “It gives the students autonomy in deciding their school day, and allows for the stress of having full school weeks to slowly diminish as we near the year’s end.”