Longer Winter Break

This year during 2015-16, Kennedy High School along with the whole Cedar Rapids district had an extra-long winter break and has students feeling all types of different emotions.

              The Cedar Rapids district has decided to divide the 2015-16 school year into semesters and with this occurring it also includes two weeks off of school for their winter break. Students are usually used to trimesters and having finals right before thanksgiving break but with this change, the breaks are much different.

              This year’s winter break started on December 19, 2015 until January 4, 2016 and finals are on January 14 and 15.

              Now with the semesters, students leave for two weeks and come back with less than two weeks to prepare for finals. The real question is “Was it worth having this super long break when you have to come back and work extra hard for the semester tests?” and “How did kids really use their extra time during break?”

              “I thought the break was just right and super fun! I got to hang out with friends and travel when usually I don’t have any time for friends.”, said Kirsten Wenclawski so. “Even though I had to come back and study extra time, it was worth it because I never get the free time to do whatever.”

              It is clear that many students enjoyed their fun over break but others thought it was very effective for their classes.

“I liked the longer break and I think that a lot of other people did too. There was definitely more time to do homework and I know that helped me because I had to make a spaghetti bridge along with many other students for a physics project over break.”, said Madison Palmer jr.

As the break was effective to some students, a couple still didn’t enjoy having to study so hard after the long break. Some thought it was difficult to remember everything after not having that daily learning with their teachers. Also, a couple of students felt rushed into learning the material all over again.

“I didn’t like having finals after break because I felt like we had a break from everything and if you didn’t study you probably forgot some things, then had to get right back into it. When I came back we had to do a lot of review with teachers.”, said Palmer jr.

Instead of having finals after two weeks of fun, it is clear that students would much rather them be before break. “It puts a weight off of a shoulder and gives them time to relax just a little bit more than this year”, said Wenclawski.