By Sarah Burnett
HCPSS has decided to take away the regularly scheduled week-long spring break. Many students have agreed that the 2020-2021 virtual school year has been much harder and stressful than in-person learning, and quite understandably, many students are frustrated and disappointed.
This year, spring break is scheduled from Friday April 2nd to Monday April 6th, which is essentially a long weekend and only three days off of school. In previous years, HCPSS scheduled a one-week long spring break that typically occurred in late March or early April, where students would be able to have a six day break from school, not including the weekend. Students would be able to travel, spend time with their families, or relax at home and take a break from all of the learning. However, due to the pandemic and the late start in the 2020 school year, HCPSS has decided to shorten spring break from one week, to a long five day weekend. Students are understandably unhappy with this decision.
When asked how she felt about spring break being very short this year, Senior Emma Smith feels that“It’s quite rude of HCPSS”. Junior Alana Cowan argues that students need a long spring break more than ever, and with the warmer weather coming, everyone will be able to take a break from staring at a computer screen all day. “I’m very upset because we’ve had such a draining year so far. We’ve all put in so much work and we should all be able to enjoy the warm weather.”
Some students even argue that there needed to be a spring break that was longer than one week this year, because of the high amounts of stress the pandemic is causing for families. Senior Emily Stanley thinks that the shortened spring break “isn’t fair. We’ve worked so hard with virtual school and we all deserve a longer break. Especially for the seniors that had most of their school year online.” Senior Kaitlyn Burnett believes that “the pandemic has mentally and physically exhausted [HCPSS students] to the point of burnout.” She says that she is “upset by this, because there needs to be a longer break for students. I feel as if her senior year was taken from me, and deserves to have the normal week-long break.”
Even though many students aren’t looking forward to the shortened spring break this year, HCPSS plans on having a normal length spring break during the 2021-2022 school year. It is currently scheduled for April 9th- April 18th (2022), assuming that there won’t be snow days that will take away from it.
We can still make the best of our shortened spring break by staying safe and healthy, and following the CDC guidelines to prevent the spread of covid. For spring break this year, we can step away from those computers for a while and focus on our mental health and enjoying the nice warm weather outside. The CDC is advising people not to travel during this time, stay socially distant (6 feet apart) from people who are not in your immediate family, and wear two facial coverings/masks when you are in public spaces.