For many, assistant principal Brian Safine’s Week at a Glance email on Nov. 29 came as a shock: Attached at the end of the email was a copy of this semester’s finals schedule, with the sixth-period final scheduled for Dec. 16, the Friday before finals week.

This change caught many students off guard, since they had expected the seventh-period final first in accordance with schedules from previous years.

For senior Jonathan Yun, the new finals schedule means an AP Physics final — his hardest class by far — four days before the other periods. Since AP Physics teacher Kirk Davis teaches only periods 2, 4 and 6, for AP Physics, Yun feels that he was put at a disadvantage in comparison to his peers in other periods.

“Sixth period would be the last period that I would expect to take first,” he said. “Any of the other periods would have worked better in my opinion. I was definitely caught off guard, and I guess I just I have to study a lot harder.”

Safine said the new finals schedule was created with the intention of helping students during the stressful week. According to Safine, the administration had to work around a staff-development day on the Thursday after finals and also prevent the potential of scheduling of three finals on one day.

In future years, Safine said other periods will be placed in this first spot.

“It’s also partially about spreading things around so it’s not always the same class that has the final that precedes the rest of finals week,” Safine said. “We try to offset the ones that were dangling one period finals on one day.”