Dear editor,
Students know that the amount of quizzes and tests that happen in the same day is stressful for them the night before when studying. This can happen at any time during the year, but for basically all of us, this pain happens before Winter and Spring Break. It’s a good thing that teachers understand that we need a break from schoolwork and that they don’t really give us anything to do over those times off, but that unfortunately leads to pileups of due dates and assessments right before we go on break.

Something that I know is done before midterms and finals is called “last test days”, where the administration requires the last test before the midterm/final of that class to be on on a certain day. In order to make the lives of “we the students” easier, my suggestion is to have that same practice also be implemented before Winter Break and Spring Break (starting this year), so we don’t have to do a lot of studying and homework for most of our classes on the same night.

Many teachers in my 2 1/2 years here have scheduled these tests and quizzes for the 2nd to last day before break in order to allow there to be what I’ll call a “free period/party” on the last day before break at the request of the students. This often happened almost every period, which felt unnecessary for me because we had all that work and stress for one day, but nothing the next day. Absolutely ridiculous!

Something that could also be considered is only allowing a “free period/party” to be allowed in the class that has their last test day on the 2nd to last day before break, with all other classes the student has be required to move on and learn the next material before break. I bet the teachers in those classes would still not assign homework. I surely hope my idea is taken into consideration.

Thank you,
Sean Cavanaugh
Class of 2019