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By: Matthew Rouker 12/7/23
Over the past few years, schools across the country have started shifting to a shorter summer break. After the reasons why, I hope that you will agree with those schools, and me.
The first reason why I believe that summer break should be shorter is that students would have more short breaks during the school year. With this schedule type, the current summer break would be broken up into around eight breaks throughout the school year. This would mean that you would be in school for the same amount of time each year, you would just have a shorter break. With more breaks during the school year, students would miss less school due to vacations and would not have to worry about lessons they are missing. Sixth-grader Jack Welch said that he did want a shorter break because “It stretches out the break so you have the same amount of time off, split up into many different breaks.”
My second reason has to do with the origins of summer break. According to PBS, summer break originated in New York around 1842, without air conditioning there was no way to regulate the temperature inside schools. The logical and easiest solution to this problem was to cancel school around the summer months and to return once it cooled down. In the modern world, where we have air conditioning, there is no need to cancel summer in favor of cooler weather.
My third reason for believing this is that students would spend less time working on review. With a shorter break, students will retain more of what they learned over the year and will not have to cram as much work into a week. Students may also be able to do more fun activities with this extra time.
My final reason for believing that summer break should be shortened is that school over the summer already exists. Many people forget that summer school is already a reality for many students and a shorter summer break would mean little change for them. You may be asking, “What would happen to summer school then?” I believe that summer school could be moved to be scheduled during other breaks or it could continue to be over summer break, since summer break would still be around a month long.
In conclusion, summer break is an outdated idea, that would be better put to use as multiple breaks throughout the year and is already partly in use. Many schools are changing to this schedule and maybe ours will be next!
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