Well, Condors, hopefully by now you’ve gotten back into the swing of things after winter break! Although the holidays can provide a much-needed reprieve from the stresses and struggles that schoolwork—as well as a lockdown or two—can place upon us, it’s important to remember that the time is now for students to make a fresh start!
As you may not know, grades reset after the first semester you complete before winter break. Winter break itself provides students with a chance to rest, reflect, and recharge; a grade reset aligns perfectly with this psychological reset. Instead of dragging the weight of past mistakes into the new semester, students can approach their studies with renewed motivation. They can set fresh goals, focus on improving skills, and tackle their challenging subjects without the burden of prior performance being a weight on their mind and their gradebook.
Overall, this grade reset can help alleviate anxiety and give us a psychological breather. With reduced stress, we can engage meaningfully with our classes, participate more fully in school without questioning if it will even matter to their grade in the long run, and we may be able to pursue more creative or critical thinking without the fear of failure. After all, when grades have you feeling down, it can sometimes be hard to look on the bright side and to let your passions shine.
It’s important to note that not all students at Cal High are entering this new semester under equal circumstances. Some may have faced personal challenges, illness, or unavoidable distractions that negatively impacted their grades. Resetting grades creates an equitable starting point, ensuring that every student on campus has a fair chance to succeed based on their abilities in the new semester, rather than based on those catastrophic days in the past when you just aren’t feeling 100% about your own abilities.
Certain students on campus hope to use this new semester to turn things around for themselves—to really make do with what they planned for in their New Year’s resolutions. One student, Isabella Iniguez, testified to her plans for the New Year: “I really hope to just be able to raise my grades this year. Last year, I burned out by the time December rolled around, and I can admit I slipped up on at least one or two finals because of it. I regret it and wish I had studied harder while I had the chance, but you can’t change what’s in the past, so I’m just really going to focus this semester on studying and doing my best.”
Another new beginning might be dawning for a certain group of people on campus; with the end of 2025, the last semester of the class of 2026 is upon us. It can be truly tragic to see our seniors go, especially for our juniors on campus; after all, we’ve grown to see these people grow alongside us, and we have used them as our guides to direct us as we progress through our own high school careers. Seeing them leave will be like seeing a part of ourselves leave in a way, so treasure the time you have with them now. For our current seniors, the hectic craze of applying to colleges and securing one’s own future is now mostly coming to a close—but don’t let senioritis hit! You still have one more semester to go, and you don’t want your happy memories of high school tarnished by one sour semester at the end, so continue to just keep on pushing forward! That applies to everyone on campus—you got what it takes to make it through this new year!