During the winter holidays, schools will usually close for an extended period of time to both celebrate the holidays with family and finish off the first semester. Some schools only have a week off, while others can have up to three or four. Spring Hill High Schools tends to stay within the middle of that range, offering up to two weeks during the break. Some believe that is enough time off for students, but others, like myself, think it isn’t.

Specifically for high school students, there are various other activities and tasks occurring in their lifetime that reduce a good portion of their free time. Even during break, they’ll still participate in certain activities such as jobs and sports. The part I find to be more overwhelming to deal with right before break is finals week. For me during some specific classes, lots of preparation is needed in order to do well on a class’s final, and with multiple classes the work has piled up rapidly and grew to be overwhelming. Many people have their own position in certain classes and may need to do more or less than others, and I tend to fall in between that line. The amount of projects, studying, and last assignments given can seem like a lot of effort just to be rewarded with only two weeks off in return.

Once finals are concluded, people can enjoy the relief of being finished with the semester for the rest of that year. However, for others like myself, it could take longer than a couple weeks in order to fully be ready to head back. I feel like the work during the second semester is a lot heavier, and I think an additional week would benefit students and encourage more engagement in learning after a long enough break. The only downside to this is how the end of the school year would be rearranged. On top of occasional snow days, the year could extend on into early June just to earn back the missed time for that extra week in January. I don’t believe it’s worth the swap and would rather end in late May like it always has ended, so in the end I don’t think it’s worth changing around the break durations at the reality of the price that it is.