“Kids at Paly are stressed.”

We’ve heard this sentiment from students, parents, teachers, administrators, and district officials, but the cliché rarely seems to produce anything more than empty rhetoric emphasizing the need to make our secondary schools friendlier, or simply (and redundantly) less stressful. While these nebulous ideas are great in principle, specific and permanent solutions are rarely offered. When they are, implementing them is often difficult, expensive or impractical. Thus, we should capitalize on the district’s calendar committee’s proposition to actually consider moving finals before winter break, as it represents a laudable and significant step towards reducing student stress.

Since one of the district’s foremost goals is to reduce student stress, moving finals to before winter break is a logical solution. If finals are before break then it will not be possible for students to study over the vacation. Moreover, if the semester has ended and semester grades must be turned in before students leave, the crunch to turn in projects and other assignments will occur before winter break. These changes would eliminate schoolwork over the vacation, and as the district has already suggested, reduce student stress.

This is not the first time the Palo Alto Unified School District or the school board have addressed the issue of assigning work over winter break. In 2006, the school board faced a similar situation. Despite support from then principal Scott Laurence for a schedule that placed finals before winter break, the board opted to move the calendar forward by only one week, still placing finals after winter break. Later in October of 2008 the school board voted to pass a resolution that tried to curtail the amount of work that students would be required to do over winter break. Unfortunately for students, this policy was left with major loopholes and did not address the fact that kids are still studying over break. The result was a policy that tried to limit the amount of homework students were assigned over break that was rarely followed, and when it was, had too many gaps to be useful.

The major drawbacks of moving finals before winter break are few, but nonetheless important to be considered. First and foremost is the outcry it would cause within the elementary and possibly even middle school parent community. This, however, is merely a knee-jerk reaction to seeing school start in early August from a group of parents that does not understand the importance of a stress free winter break because they do not have children with finals. From these parents’ perspective they have seen a summer that is gradually ending earlier and earlier, apparently encroaching upon the part of school year that is held nearest and dearest to their and their children’s hearts. While their concern that a school year that starts in early August may indeed be too early is valid, any high school parent can assure them that their fears will be assuaged in the coming years when their child may enjoy the benefit of a respite of stresslessness amid some of the most stressful years of their lives. Furthermore, by starting school earlier this means that school would also end earlier, in this case, late May. This gives students the same length of time for summer as well as conferring other important advantages. It would give students looking for a summer job a head start on kids from other schools and it would end school closer to the AP tests meaning that AP classes could use more of the year to teach AP material instead of having a few weeks at the end of the year where many AP classes simply play whiffle ball.

The other major concern is that some students do indeed utilize their winter break responsibly as an integral portion of their study regimen for finals. As with all changes, it is impossible to satisfy all parties involved. In this case, however, an overwhelming majority of both Paly and Gunn students support the change providing a clear direction for the district to take. Furthermore, moving finals before winter break will not remove all opportunities to study. Driven students, like the ones that would spend their winter break hitting the books, will still have time after school, on the weekends to study and during the “dead week” the week before finals.

The failure of previous policies indicates that moving finals before break may be the only way to virtually ensure a schoolwork free two-week break. This being the case, the district is left with the relatively easy choice of doing nothing to address student stress or moving finals before break.