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Holiday Season or Schoolwork Season? By Kirstie Lee |
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‘Tis the season to be jolly; or, instead, filled with schoolwork
For students in the Los Gatos Saratoga Union High School District, the supposedly relaxing holiday break is meddled with the ominous looming of finals in January.
In contrast, students who attend the Cupertino High School District are able to enjoy a two-week long break with the satisfaction that finals, along with the first semester of school, are over. The students are able to relax that break and not worry about grades or final projects, whereas the students in the Los Gatos Saratoga Union High School District are not granted with this beneficial resting period.
The current schedule presented in the Los Gatos Saratoga Union High School has been a hindrance for these students for more than ten years, inviting complaints from many students and parents alike. While some underclassmen may not have as much to worry about, the upperclassmen that are taking more than one AP or Honors class are loaded with things to do over a supposed “break”. Families are not able to take vacations due to their child's need to stay home and study, and the supposedly relaxing school-less days are instead filled with AP guides and reference books to complete projects and prepare for upcoming finals.
Although teachers claim to lighten the homework load to provide an opportunities for students to enjoy the holidays, in reality, announcing information regarding the class's final or any upcoming tests creates panic and thus brings an indirect workload, even if the teacher does not assign physical homework. This is not entirely the teacher's fault; the district's schedule has simply set the students up for a stressful break.
When it all boils down, there is a simple solution to this problem: the Los Gatos Saratoga Union High School District simply needs to change their scheduling for the school year. If the district mimicked
the Cupertino School District’s school year schedule and placed first semester finals before the two week-long Holiday Break at the end of the year, the already stressful high school students would be able to take the two weeks off as an actual vacation, instead of fourteen days to work even harder.
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