This year far more students may be skiing the slopes of Big Mountain than taking their finals - at least in some classes.
The absentee rate school wide is only 5.19 percent so far this year, compared to 5.7 percent last year. Under the school's new absence policy, students who have two or fewer absences are exempt from finals in that class.
In an informal poll by The Arrow, teachers reported that anywhere from none to 23 of their students will have to take finals, but no teacher reported a entire class having to test, as of last Friday.
"They're counting the number of absences, and they're making sure that they're either less than or equal to two or their staying under the maximum of ten," said Amanda St. Onge.
Math and Foreign Language stand out as classes with the best attendance, according to District Five's statistics . During final days of the semester some of those classes will be virtually empty. Stephanie Christiansen's combined German 3/4 class will have only three of students taking the final.
"I spent a miserable week with a really bad cold at school. I felt awful," said senior Lusha Alzner, who is exempt from taking her German 4 final. "I came to school everyday because I didn't want to take the semesters."
For some of the students who have the final two days off, good attendance was no easy task. They overcame bad weather, treacherous road conditions and personal illness to make it to school for class. Junior Erik Lorentzen, lost precious sleep to get to school.
"I live at the foothills of some mountains," he said. "During the big snowstorm we had the snow drifted my car in. My dad woke me up at 5 a.m. and told me to start shoveling. I got to school, but I did get a tardy."
This hard work will allow Lorentzen to go snowboarding the days when others are testing.
Some teachers have reservations about the final test exemption.
"I think that its not good that we are not doing comprehensive exams," said Christiansen. "In a language its important to review and have command of everything you've learned since the beginning of the year."
Spanish teacher Stephanie Baca, however, says cumulative exams are built into her regular curriculum.
"All information gained is built on previous knowledge," said Baca. "For example, if I give a test of chapter five in Spanish 2 it is based not only on the information in chapter five, but what the student has learned in Spanish 1 and chapters one through five."
Agrees mat teacher Mary Ann Lidstrom: "In math we have the advantage of the concepts being accumulative. You are required to bring up and review topics previously studied as you learn the next new topic."