In an unfortunate coincidence, the calendar dates have arranged themselves to maximize student misery. In a time that is supposed to be full of holiday cheer, CHS students have instead found themselves crammed into undersized desks and their schedules crammed with last-minute tests.
It’s hard to be grateful coming back from Thanksgiving break to the realization that there would be no respite until the holiday break, four whole weeks away. When I interviewed students, the discussion, like any with a high schooler, would eventually mention a lack of sleep.
“Those weeks have changed me,” stated Isabelle Lewin.
Katie Do agreed: “I didn’t get enough time to sleep in. It was really horrible.”
To make things worse for seniors, the months of November and December are the season of college applications.
“I’ve been hanging on day by day, week by week,” Yiru Zhou said. “It’s a really stressful time for a senior because you’ve got decisions coming out and applications coming up.”
As a reward for persevering through all that time in school, we received a holiday break that lasted an entire nine and a half days. (For reference, the longest break possible is twelve and a half days – nearly two full weeks!) Many students believed they weren’t able to do as much as they could have.
“I didn’t get to go anywhere [for vacation],” said Andrea Irwin.
Jamie Garcia also had big plans that didn’t come to fruition: “I could have solved world hunger.”
Other students were opposed to the school’s plans to resume school on January 2nd.
“It’s supposed to be a holiday!” said Kareena Parikh.
In fact, in 2017, when New Year’s Day also fell on a Sunday, CHS didn’t have school on January 2nd. One student raised concerns over how this shortened break would affect students’ academic capabilities in the upcoming weeks.
“We were unable to fully embrace our childhood. It’s devastating to see the impact this could have on our fellow students. We won’t have that same energy to bring day to day, ” claimed Adi Sinha. “We need this time to get refreshed and relax to bring our A-game to every class we take this second semester.”
Regardless of the amount of complaining we do or the number of critical articles we write, the school schedule will remain as it is. As we dive headfirst into a new year and leave our too-short holiday break behind us, remember that there are still things to look forward to: there’s no school on MLK Day (Monday, Jan 16th), the school year will be halfway done on the 17th, and Winter Break is coming up in February. Hopefully, until then, the days of schoolwork and exams will fly by.
