With finals rapidly approaching and the promise of winter break in the near future, students are reaching their academic limits. Winter break has, for the entirety of my high school career, been two weeks long, but is that really long enough for staff and students to recuperate from the stress of the semester?

With a sixteen-week semester, two weeks is not enough to recover from the rigor of finals season. Students are stressed throughout the whole semester and deserve a longer break. Longer time to relax can mean more productive students when school starts back up. Longer breaks can also mean being able to spend more time with family and friends. For people who celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, and other holidays during the break, seeing family is important and celebrating with family is important. With Hanukkah being 8 days long, winter break should include all 8 days so as to be as inclusive as possible. This year, the last day of school is December 23, which is very late, and for people who celebrate Christmas, it does not allow them a lot of time to prepare gifts for their friends and family. 

Staff also deserve a break. Teachers have to grade and get final grades in, but they should get a longer period of time to do so, so they have more time to grade and enough time to relax before the second semester. Staff members deserve to stay home and have time away from work and be able to take vacations during break, which requires more time over break. Staff members also have families, including children, whose breaks may not line up with ours. Having a longer break makes it more likely that breaks with other districts will overlap, and teachers and other staff will have the opportunity to spend quality time with their families. 

I look forward to traveling and seeing my family over break because I don’t have time to do so during the school year. As a senior especially, I want to hang out with my friends and spend as much time with them as possible before college. We are all so busy because of school and college applications that we can really only hang out over breaks, which is why a longer winter break would be beneficial. 

Making winter break longer can mean a longer school year, but not if we make up days during the year. Longer breaks can be better for students and staff. Is it really worth having a two-week break if people aren’t really given a chance to relax and recharge?