The 8-period day felt like a sprint for Danielle Fluegge, assistant director of student activities and English teacher, who has spent 18 years working at Glenbrook North.

“That [8-period] day felt like I hopped onto a treadmill, and the treadmill was going at a 10,” said Fluegge. “I felt like I was gonna miss every class, miss every meeting.”

Moving the first semester finals before winter break resulted in a decision to have an 8-period day before the first day of exams in order to maintain a balance of Green and Gold days.

The Student Activities Office tried to address the changing needs and the mindsets of students and staff, since many teachers were finishing units at the same time as the Winter Week activities, Fleugge said.

This year, first semester activities included hallway snowflakes, the winter orchestra and band concert and fun spirit days, and a Welcome Back Winterfest was added to kick off second semester, Fleugge said.

“We’ve not had a January that starts off with a fresh slate, and that’s a really cool opportunity to set the tone for second semester,” Fleugge said. 

The 2025-2026 school year started earlier due to the calendar change. 

The net benefit for students that are only in second semester AP classes, such as Macroeconomics, is that students will have a few more classes before the AP exam, social studies teacher Robert Berg said.

AP Government and Politics teachers did not have to cut down a lot of content, but shortened the number of days per unit for the first semester class, Berg said.

“It meant maybe doing a few less practice problems,” said Berg. “It might mean spending a little bit less time on things that are not necessarily things that are on the AP exam.”

The calendar change also shifted end-of-year traditions for seniors.

“You go straight from AP exams into prom, and then right after prom it’s senior finals, and we basically don’t get a last day of school,” said senior Sylvia Ugarcovici. “I think that’s one of the worst parts of it, because the last day that we’ll be in school is [during] AP exams.”

Previous seniors spent their last day of school in the SAC after senior awards doing their senior prank, said Ugarcovici.

“It’s the stuff that you’ve watched all the seniors do in the past, so it’s unfortunate to have it be your turn, and you don’t know if you’re gonna get the same experience,” Ugarcovici said.