Due to the chilling winter from this past January, cold weather days are taking up class time, which teachers could be using to prepare students for the approaching AP tests.  Unlike finals, AP testing days set on the date across the nation; therefore, they are unable to be changed for public schools.  With a shorter window of teaching time, all teachers want to do is freeze time.

Although four days may seem insignificant for some classes, that could be an entire chapter’s worth of time lost or a couple review days gone.  In these cases, teachers need to adjust their schedules to get through all necessarily material to before May.

“You just make adjustments, and you curtail things when necessary.  I turned a two day test into a one day test.  You just have to make minor adjustments,” David Voss, AP social studies teacher, said.  “When you’re a teacher, you have that flexibility.”

Voss has taught nine years of AP U.S. History (APUSH), and this year he teaches two APUSH classes, so the pressure of time is pressing on his shoulders to get his classes prepared for the AP test.

“It’s frustrating, obviously.  I view every time we lose class time, whether it be a weather day or something else, it’s a lost day that we cannot get back in preparation for the test,” Voss said.  “My students have a set calendar that we try to use, and I tell them that no matter what happens with weather, stick with the calendar, because if we don’t, we won’t finish everything.”

Setting a calendar is exactly what got Logan Ejupi, senior who took APUSH last year, through the class.  Similar to this year, last year’s class lost four days to cold wreathing closings.  This year, Ejupi’s schedule is once again filled with AP classes.

“I understand a lot of the teachers are feeling rushed and feeling a little bit of pressure, and that makes sense because the AP test won’t move,” Ejupi said.  “But if you look at it from the perspective of the whole country, we have snow days a lot of times, and states down South aren’t able to start school as early as we are because of the heat.  In the end, it starts evening out; at least I hope it would.  So while I personally feel the crunch, everybody is feeling that crunch.”