My school does it so you automatically round up to a 59 if you get less than that. All my grades are pretty solid so it wouldn't hurt too much to skip em all
Sure they can. Depends on what percentage of the final grade the final is. I've also had teachers who have said that we can drop one of our test grades, specifically to encourage us to do well throughout the semester so we can skip our final.
Yet my finals are in July.