During the third week of December, Centaurus students, armed with their study-sheets, calculators, and hours of preparation from CramFest and late-night study sessions, got ready to take their finals with a new schedule that brought complaints from the moment it was announced. Instead of having the first and the last final on Monday, second and seventh on Tuesday, and so on, the classes and review periods didn’t make any sense. Random classes on random days with no appearance of any possible order.

However, due to fire risks from the extremely high winds, Xcel Energy shut off the power, which led to school being cancelled the last two days of Finals Week and the finals for those days being postponed  until students returned in January. News was sent out through the CHS Instagram page, @centaurus_stuco, and through email. 

Students took their third, eighth, fifth, and sixth period finals, along with review periods for each of previously-missed finals on January 6th and 7th, respectively. 

This change did bring feelings of annoyance from the student body. “I would’ve rather gone into the next week and still have had my finals before Winter Break,” said Sophomore Raylynn Henson when asked about how she felt about the change. When asked the same question, Sophomore Zoe Hobert-Hillis replied, “It was strange to come back to school after break and finish first semester.” 

In conclusion, the general feelings of the student body about the power shutoffs were negative. Students would have rather waited for the break, instead of finals.