District moves up first day so fall semester ends before holidays
By Paul Phelan
Most students at Skyline are aware of the pending plans to change to block scheduling in the near future, but that’s not the only upcoming change at this school. In addition to a new schedule, school will now be starting a week earlier than last year.
That’s right, one week removed from our summer break this year. When talking to students who hadn’t heard of this change, they were shocked.
One sophomore, upon hearing about this change, could only say, “No way, that’s not happening.”
After explaining that it isn’t a joke, she was severely disappointed. She thinks that this change won’t help anything at this school, and just will give students less time to spend doing independent activities, less time with family, and less time to de-stress.
When she found out that the main reason for this change is to have finals before winter break, she simply stated that they should speed up the process instead of taking time off break.
“They should just teach faster.”
Teachers, on the other hand, may feel differently. To determine this, we got an opinion from
Mr. Jensen is a history teacher here at Skyline. When asked what he thought about this change, he simply replied, “It’s alright.”
Students who overheard him say this were not thrilled, and questioned why he thinks so. He replied by saying that it will help the school by allowing finals to take place before winter break, which he believes will help students who tend to forget what they learned over breaks from school.
Although he makes a good point, not everyone agrees. Students who already knew about the change had much more to say about it,
“F*** that s***, it’s stupid,” one vocal junior told me.
It seems that most students are not happy with this change, and won’t be unless they give the time off back in some way, such as adding a week to winter break.
Overall, while this change isn’t popular with students, opinion may change if finals end up being easier next year. If it helps things go more smoothly and helps with academics, people may have a change of heart.
The first day of school for 2018-19 is set for August 13. The current school year began on August 21. Just four years ago, school started as late as August 25.
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