ANNA MILLER
Hello Mrs. Colgan and Mrs. Bernstein! My name is Anna Miller. I am a junior at Los Alamos High School. I have lived and gone to school here in Los Alamos my whole life. I play the flute in the marching band and work over the summer at Barranca Mesa Pool. I am reaching out to members of the school board to share some concerns and questions that I have with the different calendar options and which one I think works best for high school students. While having more breaks throughout the year would keep students more motivated, high school students have educational expectations that don’t go away during these breaks.
High school students who participate in extracurricular activities over breaks throughout the year still have sport, educational and band expectations that need to be met so it’s not really a break. Because the calendars with more breaks are specific to our school district, other schools would still be in classes and schedule things like football games, band practice, and sports practices which are all expectations that high school students need to meet. As a band student having a fall break would just mean band that week to prepare for our upcoming competition so I won’t be receiving the break as intended. So while this is a great option for elementary students and maybe even middle school this option does not work for high school as there are still expectations. Options B and C don’t accommodate high school students as we wouldn’t be receiving the break as intended.
Giving high school students breaks throughout the year would mean that homework expectations would increase over these breaks, not even giving students a chance for rest during these weeks. In an observation about having homework over breaks it was found that having assignments over breaks makes students have less motivation and tells them that teachers don’t value their time off. Having home is unintentionally telling students with homework that their time with family isn’t important and school should always come first. This would be more prominent if students got more breaks as it would increase having homework and therefore not actually give students a break from schoolwork. It can be argued that having homework over breaks would keep students from forgetting things over the breaks and would give them something to do. But learning loss is really only significant over the summer break. There isn’t a significant amount of learning loss over a 1-2 week period so is there a need for homework? Elementary and even Middle school students who don’t have this expectation to have homework this option would be great to allow for them to have breaks. But these options with breaks B and C don’t work for high school students.
High school students require the summer to focus on jobs and travel that students look forward to throughout the year and keep them motivated. Having breaks would mean less summer and that means less work opportunities. As a student who works at Barranca Mesa Pool over the summer, having these weeks to work provides more money for college. So in the long run having breaks would increase student expectations and take away weeks to work in the summer. Most students at Los Alamos High School work over the summer and need the summer to work and giving more breaks would decrease summer opportunities. So while giving breaks seems helpful it’s taking away students opportunities to work over the summer.
Specifically for high school students, calendar option A is the best option to accommodate students’ needs. Students have the summer to look forward to which helps with motivation and burnout. Choosing options C and B for high school would cause students to quit extracurricular activities if it’s going to be an expectation during these breaks.
Thank you so much for taking time to read my email and spending time helping to accommodate all students' needs.
Best regards,
-Anna Miller
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