Juggling a persistent social life, arduous school schedule, and copious sports practices, the various snow days did nothing but complicate life for junior Ivana Webb. As late April and early May–or more commonly known as AP season– rapidly approach, Ivana cannot help but become overly stressed about AP exams and lack of class time she has had to prepare for them.

“In AP Seminar we had a presentation, but due to the snow days, we couldn’t all get together to work on it,” Ivana said. “We didn’t have enough days because the snow days took all our school days.”

Not only are the students experiencing a lack of class time to prepare for their AP exams and practice for their exams, but when they do have school, the homework load is outrageous.

“Since we have had so many snow days, our teachers haven’t really given us a lot of homework online over the days,” Ivana said. “Once we do get back to school, I just have so much homework that’s piled on top of me, and it gets to be a lot with all my other classes.”

The curriculum has been given to the students at a high-speed pace to make up for the missing days, some teachers have even had to cut out tests and chapters.

“All of my teachers have either shortened the tests or cut them out altogether,” Ivana said. “They just want to try to fit in all the material they can before the end of the school year.”

Even though the students are become overwhelmed, all the teachers understand how hard it is to catch up on their work.

“Although my teachers are being very lenient which is nice,” Ivana said. “I think they understand how hard it is getting back into a routine when it keeps getting ruined.”

The concern that the students have due to the lack of school days isn’t a missed chapter, but how the rushed curriculum is going to affect their AP exam grades.

“My fear is that since we have missed so much school, I won’t be as prepared for my AP exam,” Ivana said. “Although the exam is a while away, I just hope we don’t have any more snow days.”

Although the teachers are stuck, there is nothing they can do. The AP exam dates won’t change, so they just have to give the students the information hoping they will learn it

“All my flex days are gone,” AP US History teacher Steve Labenz said. “As we get closer [to the exam], I’ll probably give them notes on the last chapter and lecture so they have the information,”

Along with the juniors involved in AP classes, sophomore AP US History students are stressed for their first AP exam.

“We do a chapter every week,” sophomore AP US History student Whitney Currie said. “Missing so much school has made a lot of chapters more on us to understand, and learning that much information in such a short amount of time is hard to comprehend and hard to understand for the test.”

Ivana also feels that same stress of not learning the curriculum in school and teaching it to herself.

“When the teachers did give me homework over break, it was hard to understand,” Ivana said. “It’s more difficult when a teacher isn’t in the same room as you to ask questions and you are learning things all by yourself.”

Luckily, some students, like those in AP World History, have already taken part of their final exam, taking off stress off the ticking time bomb.

“The whole second semester we have three exams, and our final one is only an hour, instead of four, like most,” Ivana said. “We’ve gotten a taste of what the exams are gonna be like, so when the final comes, we will be less stressed.”

Due to the material being thrown at her and her stress level rising, it was extremely obvious to Ivana that the snow days were going to throw off her school life.

“When we got back from the snow days, I had a few tests,” Ivana said. “I did not remember anything I was learning before which made me get the worst grade I’ve ever gotten on a test.”

Most students along with Ivana have had to adapt to the multiple snow days off and keeping themselves on track.

“With this many snow days, I just have to learn to stay on track with my work,” Ivana said. “Although, it’s really hard to predict when we are going to have a snow day, so I just hope my teachers plan for more.”

Throughout these treacherous conditions, the students have been able to stay connected throughout their electronic devices, which have made the days off so much easier.

“The nice thing is that the teachers are able to put assignments up on Google Classroom when we aren’t at school,” Ivana said. “They have been really good at communicating with us on our days off.”

Not only did the full week off of school make it hard for the students, but with additional snow days after, it interrupted the schedule.

“When we got back, we had to start going through the material faster,” Ivana said. “This especially made it hard when we had additional snow days because the material was so new and hard to recall.”

Although snow days seem like the best thing a high school can wish for, they prove to be doing more bad than good.

“I think the worst [thing] about the snow days was adjusting back to a regular schedule,” Ivana said. “When we got back from that week of snow days, we had even more [work than usual], and they were all just messing me up.”

The students and teachers are hopeful that the snow days don’t affect the AP exam grades; but as the snow days keep on coming, it’s up to the students to stay on track.

“At this point, the kids have to be working on the things they have to be working on,” Labenz said. “I can help them as much as I can, but what they do at home is going to be key.”