For the first time in PVUSD history, the school board has voted to end the semester before winter break this year.

Theoretically, this will give students a break from school work, but there is a noticeable problem in making the first semester only approximately 16 weeks long while the second semester encompasses 23 weeks.

The short first semester will create more stress for students who may wish to have more opportunities to bring up their grade in a class they struggled to adapt to at the beginning of the year.

Though ending the semester before winter break was supposed to help students’ mental health, I believe it will have the opposite effect.

“The shorter semester is going to impact my grades because, if I end up getting a grade I wasn’t satisfied with, I am going to have less time to fix it,” senior Avery Simonian said. “In addition, applying to college during the short semester has been extremely nerve-racking.” 

Sophomore Cherise Stoll is also concerned about what this means for second semester.

“The longer second semester will definitely be a challenge,” Stoll said. “It will definitely be difficult pushing through the last weeks of school.”

Since students normally struggle to keep up participation towards the end of the school year when summer is right around the corner, it seems a longer second semester would worsen student motivation.

Although most students would like a break from school work, the real issue is about the inequality of time for each semester.

The old traditional academic calendar of beginning school at the end of August and finishing in mid-June was originally intended to give a break to students throughout the country from overheated classrooms during hot summer months.

This is not as relevant for Southern Californian classrooms, however, as we normally experience the hot weeks around October.

The best solution for next year would be to even out the semesters by starting a few weeks earlier in August.

Most students that were interviewed said they would be willing to start the school year earlier if it meant a stress free break and even semesters.