Summer is the time of year when many students look forward to as they have school off and more time on their hands, but what if that time was more equally distributed throughout the year? Marriotts Ridge High School and Howard County generally have been making strong changes to the school system over the past couple of years. The most recognizable for students was changing the school’s start and end time and most recently, cutting phones out of school. All of these changes have been for the sake of benefiting students’ well-being, so who is to say that taking students’ long summer away is not shortly on the agenda?
Some schools, including local private schools, have mildly flirted with this idea, adopting trimesters (meaning three sections) as opposed to quarters (meaning four sections) as a metric of a school year’s length. This three-part schedule allows for wider breaks in between trimesters for students and staff to enjoy; however, it comes at the expense of losing time in summer.
There are multiple reasons to back up the beneficial aspect of having longer breaks during the school year.
One of these reasons includes allowing students to achieve better recuperation throughout the year. With more consistent and lengthier breaks of two to three weeks scattered throughout the school year, students have the chance to reset themselves or catch up from a string of absences that they would not otherwise have.
“The pacing of breaks is kinda like a marathon, if you’re running it through with small breaks just to rest at the end, you’re going to get tired faster. But if you have better pacing and longer breaks in between you will last a lot longer. Also, the mental health of students struggle a lot towards the end and with winter break only being a week and spring break getting shorter and shorter it’s only getting worse,” exclaimed junior Jordan Oh.
Some people may argue though that the summer, while arguably more or less effective at this, allows students to have trips and activities planned as well as a season for non-school work they may not otherwise have time for. However, it may be said that these greater length breaks throughout the year provide students with the time for vacation if they wish. However, it does bear the burden of not having a great deal of time a student could invest in possibly seeking a job.
“Having a longer summer would make vacations harder for families; for example, my family goes to China and we wouldn’t be able to do that if summer was shortened. Also, people have summer jobs and camps that they go to which wouldn’t work with shorter summers,” stated junior Nash Wei.
However, a student’s focus is mostly on school regardless, which has the effect of greater rates of information retention throughout the year. Without students taking about one-fifth of the year off, students forget less material and have generally more success than otherwise. This also saves time during the learning season that does not need to be spent on review.
“Summer is way too long, by the end of it I’m just playing Hypixel all day like what’s the point of it,” remarked junior Leon Gallash.
A logistical challenge though may be in coordinating the switch from our current system to a new framework. Students sometimes have plans or years in advance with family or may have traditions that take place during the summer that require a large deal of time. These challenges can be faced if given enough notice, but are sure to cause pushback from those who enjoy routine. On the other side for teachers and faculty, this change would require redoing every lesson plan to make it manageable to teach over the course of a year and would require employees of the school system to make personal sacrifices as well.
But, perhaps most notably for students, there may be a solution to save some of the effort on the part of the education board. With year-round school which results in relatively quicker rates of going through information, students may be able to graduate in less time than they currently are, spending less time going through the school system and greater time in the real world to live their life.
Overall, having year-round school has many pros that are to student’s benefits. However, like most policies, it would require compromise and effort to place into our school’s system. Through studies and debates, this alternative of year-round school to what students have today could be a reality soon to come if enough voices are heard.