How much time off is enough time off? Photo courtesy of sophomore Bee Balicki.
At San Luis Obispo High School summer break is from June 6 until August 15.
That’s only 69 days.
A lot of SLOHS students don’t think that’s enough, and at this point I agree. June and July are awesome but even though the first few weeks for August are summer, a lot of it is preparing for school.
Tomorrow is the last day of summer and it feels way too short.
“I think that summer could be a full three months because right now it’s two and three quarters which is annoying. I think if we changed the schedule of summer, that could be interesting.” said sophomore Finley Pierse.
Over the summer a lot of students travel and go on trips. And if summer was longer students would be able to take longer vacations, and could see family for longer. If someone wants to travel or visit family they have to account for how much of their summer they are spending on that trip.
If they go to visit family for 2 weeks, that’s 20% of their summer. Which doesn’t seem like a lot but when you really think about it, that goes by super fast.
“Summer is a time for relaxation and recuperation after the school year. And the school year takes up about half of the days of the year. So we need more non school time, in order to let kids be kids.” said sophomore Isabella Cox
For students who took summer school, traveling was nearly impossible. Summer school was throughout the entire month of June, and ended July 19th. Although summer school is a wonderful opportunity, it doesn’t leave students a lot of time to travel. If summer was longer, students would be able to take summer school and travel, go on vacations, visit family, etc.
“As a student who is taking summer school, my summer is taking up a lot with summer school. The only free days I have to travel are the weekends or the few weeks we don’t have summer school. I’m someone who travels a lot and if summer was longer I’d be able to do that.” said sophomore Domi Osorio.
SLOHS students work so hard during the school year, with school work, sports, extracurriculars and more. They deserve a longer break to rest, visit family, hang out with friends, travel, etc. Especially for students who play sports during the summer, time off is very important.
“If I had more summer I would do creative things like reading, to get educated on topics outside of school. I would also do exercise at the beach or pool.” Said Cox.
Over the past ten years summer has changed a lot. At a High school in 2000 the first day of school was September 6th, and the last day of school was June 15th. School only ended 9 days later than SLOHS and started again almost a month later. Why can’t we go back to three full months of summer?
Rest is super important for everyone, but especially for teenagers who are still growing and whose brains are developing. Let’s think of a solution and make summer longer for SLOHS students.
Sources: LA Times Daily Pilot
