By Claire Denne
Newsletter Editor
Because of the academic and social stress that accompanies a long school year, students
and staff deserve a longer winter break away from the worries of school. Adding another week to
our winter break will also allow the school year to start at the same time as neighboring districts
like Arcadia, Monrovia and San Gabriel and evening out the fall athletics schedule. Moving the
start of the year a week earlier would have finals before the break, so that students don’t have to
worry about studying during their break.
“Winter break would be so much better for students if it were longer because many
teachers assign homework over the break and some students can barely catch a break,”
sophomore Megha Arun said. “School is already very tiring and students need to take a break
and take care of themselves. We are high schoolers, not machines, and we need our downtime
and our relaxation time.”
Typically, teachers rush to fill the weeks between Thanksgiving break and winter break
with the lessons necessary for finals. Immediately after returning from break, students have to
review and study for finals the week after. Winter break should be a time to relax, spend time
with friends and family, and enjoy things outside of school.
Instead, students are overwhelmed with schoolwork until the break, then have two weeks
off without any classroom learning. After this, they have a week to review and remember
everything they learned since August. Winter break is futile for mental health and relaxation in
the context of the inconvenient schedule.
A solution to this problem would be to extend winter break to three weeks, meaning the
school year would start one week earlier and move finals before the end of the year.
“By the middle of the year so many students including myself face the challenges of
burnout and it can be difficult to find the right motivation to do work or to do anything for that
matter,” Arun said. “By starting a week earlier, schools can give their students more time to
recover from the stresses of classes and extracurricular activities.”
If winter break were to be three weeks instead, there would be more time to destress,
enjoy holidays, train for winter or spring sports and study, especially for AP students. In a
different schedule with the semester ending before the break, students could see this recess as a
more official end to the semester. This would function similarly to how summer break is used as
the end of the school year, and be able to return after the break less stressed out and able to learn
new topics, instead of having to refresh the previous ones.
According to the Los Angeles Times’ article, “Are three weeks too long for winter
break?” regarding Los Angeles Unified School District’s schedule, a LAUSD spokesperson
found that a longer break lessened the amount of absent students around the holidays, allowed
families to travel farther without missing school, gave time for credit recovery programs and
more preparation time for AP students.