The sound of the final bell on Friday, March 12 did not exactly have the same effect that it usually had for many of the students at AHS. A lot of those students went home with one thing on their mind: Interim Reports.

This quarter, interim reports were handed out in physical form directly to the students, rather than being mailed directly home in an attempt by the county to save money on postage. The AHS homepage made a clear reminder of the distribution of interims, so students who had well-informed parents were not likely to get away with hiding their interims.

“I got a C in government class and my mom was really upset,” said sophomore Doris Castillo.

Interims are not usually taken as seriously as report cards, since they did not show up on a student’s transcript. Still, some students and parents did not take the matter lightly. Sophomore Helina Daniel expressed her distress in the situation and said, “There goes my spring break just because I have a C+.”

However, some parents do not stress too much over their child’s grade report. Either they simply do not care enough to worry about an interim, or they trust the student to bring the grade up on their own.

Senior Adel Ahmed said his grades “weren’t so bad; I had to two Cs and the rest were all Bs and As. My parents thought it was decent but they knew I could bump up my grades.”

After school activities such as clubs and team sports could hardly make for a plausible excuse for poor grades.

Sophomore Lorraine Turner’s interim was “pretty descent” according to Turner, who had participated in JV girls’ basketball most of the time prior to distribution of interims. “I had only two bad grades. My mom said just to bring them up before report cards came out,” she said.

The purpose of handing out interims was so that the student and parent could officially see the progress that was being made in each class. Castillo said she likes the idea of interims, stating that they were “Necessary because it gives you a look at how you are and if you need to get better or try harder in a class.”

With the interim serving as a warning, students have a few weeks to pull their academic performance together before quarter grades are assigned by teachers.