After the Knicks championship victory on Saturday, some New York students hoped for another miracle: a reprieve from their end-of-course state science exams on Thursday so that they could attend the ticker-tape parade for the team\u2019s first title in 53 years.<\/p>\n
But the exams will go on.<\/p>\n
Officials at the New York State Education Department said on Monday that the four tests, known as Regents exams, will take place as planned on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The schedules<\/a> for the tests, which are set by the state and not the New York City Department of Education, were released long before there was any reason to think that the Knicks could shake five decades of bad luck and win the N.B.A. finals.<\/p>\n \u201cNew Yorkers are rightfully excited to celebrate the Knicks, but our students have been preparing all year for this moment, too,\u201d said JP O\u2019Hare, a spokesman at the Education Department. \u201cJust like the Knicks, they\u2019ve put in the work and earned their chance to shine.\u201d<\/p>\n The parade starts at 10 a.m., just as two exams, Living Environment and Life Science: Biology, are supposed to be underway. Two more will follow in the afternoon, Physical Setting\/Earth Science and Earth and Space. Several hundred thousand students across the state, mainly high school students, take the exams every year.<\/p>\n Moments after Saturday\u2019s game, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the date of the parade. Almost immediately, students and parents launched online petitions<\/a> urging that the Regents exams be moved<\/a>. Others appealed to Mr. Mamdani on social media. but he has no say regarding the Regents exams. On Monday, Mr. Mamdani urged students to stay in school on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cMy encouragement would be that you should still be taking the Regents,\u201d Mr. Mamdani said in an interview on NY1<\/a>. \u201cUnlike the executive order for bedtime<\/a>, this is something I cannot repeal.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the petitions pleaded for relief, stressing what could be a sad reality for lifelong and long-suffering Knicks fans: If history is any guide, the next championship parade may not be in their lifetime.<\/p>\n \u201cThe scheduling of the N.Y. Regents exams on June 18 threatens to prevent us from partaking in this historic moment,\u201d Jayden King, a 10th-grade student in the Copiague Public School District on Long Island, wrote in a petition that he created. His Earth Science exam was scheduled for Thursday.<\/p>\n His father, Peter King, said that their father-son relationship was rooted in their love for the Knicks. They watch every game together, often on the television in Jayden\u2019s room because they believe that the team plays better when they watch in his room.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been waiting our whole lives, and it\u2019s an opportunity for us to experience that together as a family,\u201d Peter King, 43, said.<\/p>\n He said that his family had turned their sadness about missing the parade into a teaching moment for Jayden. \u201cThe Knicks have taught us that there are disappointments in life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Another petition was created by Michelle Weintraub, who said that her daughter, Bryn, had been \u201chysterical all weekend\u201d after she realized her Living Environment exam was on Thursday morning. Bryn, 13, attends Bell Academy in Queens.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a really emotional, social and mental shake-up for a 13-year-old,\u201d Ms. Weintraub said.<\/p>\n Ms. Weintraub said that while she believed her daughter deserved to be able to attend the parade, she had accepted that she and her husband could not. Ms. Weintraub teaches at P.S. 55, an elementary school in Queens, and her husband, Evan Weintraub, is a middle-school dean at I.S. 25 Adrien Block School.<\/p>\n \u201cThis conflict has caused immense stress in my home,\u201d Ms. Weintraub said.<\/p>\n