ALEXANDRA SIMAKOV
Dear Mr. Jaurigue, Ms. Specter, Ms. Bernstein, Mrs. Colgan, Mrs. Wyman, Mrs. Guy, and Mr. Payne,
My name is Sasha Simakov, and I am a junior with a single parent. My family, who has been living in Los Alamos for my whole life, has come to greatly appreciate and enjoy the many summer activities that the community has to offer. While adding more breaks throughout the school year could provide mental health benefits and prevent short term burnout for some students, the Los Alamos Public School system needs to adopt a calendar option which maintains the lengthy summer break that provides students with key opportunities.
One of the most important reasons for maintaining a longer summer break is the many outdoor summer opportunities that local students and their families have come to enjoy. From the beautiful hiking trails to the weekly Friday evening concerts held at Ashley Pond, all members of the community enjoy the wonderful outdoor season. Furthermore, one of the most meaningful parts of summer in this county is having the time to visit and see all of the summer fairs -- including the Science Fest, art fairs, and farmer’s market. Limiting the amount of time that students have for summer would also limit them from doing the outdoor adventures that can be enjoyed while the weight of academic pressure is temporarily lifted off their shoulders. Depriving students of the vital summer window and the opportunities that come with it would just leave a sense of lacking among the local youth. Yet, some parents and school staff may argue that these opportunities do little to improve the suffering mental health of overworked students. After all, the bulk of academic pressure occurs during the school year, not during the summer. However, several studies have shown that along with the increased sunlight exposure that comes with spending more time outdoors come heightened serotonin levels and the lowered risk of depression and other mental illnesses. This increased sunlight exposure during the sunny summer months leads to significant mental health improvement, which transfers over into the school year and leaves students mentally reinvigorated and ready for new challenges. Other times of the year like fall and spring have less sunlight and people generally spend less time outdoors due to the poor weather. While breaks do benefit students no matter the time of their placement, tuning in with nature’s clock may help increase these benefits even further. Keeping our traditionally long summer as is would allow for Los Alamos youth to both get the most out of their local summer opportunities and improve their mental health.
A longer summer break also allows for many Los Alamos students, including myself, to work and gain other beneficial college and career experiences. As someone who has a single parent, money sometimes gets tight, especially around costs that surround things like gas money, college funds, and extracurricular activities. I don’t have time to work during the school year, as my father emphasizes me focusing on my education and other activities over work. But over the summer, I am expected to help out and gain workplace experience for various life skills such as money management, working with people/customers, and managing my own transportation. If the summer break was shortened, it would be more difficult for me to find a short-term position in which I could be fully trained in and hired in. Having less weeks to work also takes away from my potential earnings, which I need to cover various personal costs during the school year. In addition, a portion of out-of-county students who attend the Los Alamos Public School system are below the poverty line. For instance, part of the accepted student population is from Rio Arriba, where the child poverty rate is 27%. Like me, the students from this county would probably be expected to work during the summer, except that the reasons for their work would be more urgent, as many of them need to provide extra monetary support to their families. Depriving the already disadvantaged students of economic opportunity just dismantles the values of equity and equal rights that HB 130 and our county have been trying to achieve.
Due to its maintenance of a traditional length summer, Calendar Option A should be selected for the Los Alamos 2023-2024 school year. In addition to this, the extra instructional days that are added onto the year could be used to train students in social and emotional wellness skills, allowing them to better cope with the longer school sessions without extra breaks. These training days could include scheduled classroom counselor visits, field days, or even days that allow for students to organize their school materials and lockers. But if we fail to give our community the summer breaks that we so cherish, mental health could worsen even further, and disadvantaged students could become even more so. Thus, it is of vital importance to keep the breaks that have been working for students.
Thank you for both your considerations and your hard work trying to meet the needs and demands of so many different members of our community.
Best regards,
Alexandra (Sasha) Simakov
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