School breaks are a student’s best friend during the school year. They give students extra time to do what they want, including sleeping in, hanging out with friends, or even just taking a moment to slow down and breathe. Although these breaks are meant to give students time away from school, homework is often given over the break–ruining it.

Having to do homework over the break leads students to feel stressed during a time that’s supposed to be relaxing. During holiday breaks, families tend to get together leading many students to travel out of town or have their families come into town. It can be very overwhelming trying to manage family visits, leaving students scrambling to find time to do homework.

While some students can understand why teachers give homework over the break, others find it frustrating because they perceive it as teachers taking advantage of their free time.

“I don’t think that teachers should give work over the break, just in general. I understand when an English teacher is like ‘read a couple of chapters’ or kind of using it for review stuff. But in general, when it comes to projects or homework assignments intended to make use of ‘well you’re going to have a lot of free time’ I don’t approve of that,” said senior Sarah Allerheiligen.

While some homework assignments can be helpful to review topics, students commonly regard receiving homework as unfair and not true to the definition of a break.

“I don’t think [teachers] should [give homework] because they have to respect the fact that there is a holiday break. Taking time off of school is […] to do something outside of school,” sophomore Mayra Briggs said.

Whether students receive homework or not, over the break, really depends on the teacher. Some teachers don’t give any homework while other teachers do, believing that if they don’t students will forget what they just learned.

While it would be nice for teachers to not give homework over the break, it’s not always possible. Sometimes homework is necessary over the break, that way teachers are able to cover every topic they need to in the given year.

Many students bring up the point that if teachers stopped the units right before breaks, there would be no need to give any homework and the teachers wouldn’t have to worry about students forgetting anything. Unfortunately, the units that need to be taught don’t always line up perfectly with the breaks each year.

“Our units are sequential and don’t follow breaks so we can’t do that, we just have to go when materials finish,” Geometry teacher Shelly Soltis said.

While in some circumstances homework can’t be avoided, it would be nice for both students and teachers if no homework was given and everyone could enjoy a complete break from work.