SHS has recently joined the year round calendar and decreased our summer break to two months. This has come as a thrill to a variety of students and staff because now we get two weeks for all of our other breaks. Other people, like myself, are a little more disappointed. I personally feel as if a two month summer break is not long enough.

Shortly after starting school, we leave again for two weeks for fall break. The two week break is much needed after the stress and chaos of starting a new school year again. If we just had a longer summer break, I don’t think the two week fall break would be as necessary. In my opinion, if we got another week or two of summer, we would only need one week off for fall break.

Most schools in Indiana start up again around the middle of August. SHS? We start at the end of July. It’s no fun seeing our other friends and family having fun throughout the week while we’re already sitting in class, staring out the window, daydreaming about sitting out by the pool or sleeping in.

Another problem that we face at SHS is getting out of bed early in the morning. Schools like Lawrence Central and Lawrence North don’t start school until 8:40. This gives them more time to sleep in. I strongly believe that students at SHS would perform better if we didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn.

Terra Ziporyn Snider, a medical writer from CNN, says it is unhealthy, unsafe and counterproductive to be sending teens and young adults out to school as early as 5:30 in the morning. Statistics say most teenagers can’t fall asleep before 11 p.m. due to puberty and other changes occurring within the young body. It’s interesting that adults and doctors expect students who participate in extracurricular activities and have homework every night to get 8-9 hours of sleep. If we have to accomplish everything our teachers assigned for the day, and participate in sports or clubs, that leaves little time for sleep. Research shows that sleep deprivation can cause mood swings, obesity and depression. Not getting enough sleep can cause difficulty concentrating and remembering what you learned. A good night’s rest should not be considered rare or lucky, but that’s how it is for students that start school before 8.

In order to get better performances out of students during the school year, we should have a longer summer break to recoup from the last gruesome year. By having a longer summer break, we would also get shorter breaks during the year, so it won’t be such a difficult transition coming back from those short breaks. Going to school later in the morning would also increase performances because students would be able to pay attention and comprehend more information.