After a month of studying, a week of exams and a well-deserved break to unwind, students and teachers return to school in January ready for new beginnings. However, they find themselves stuck in an awkward transition period. Revisiting material from the previous semester feels redundant, but it’s too soon to dive into new content. Aligning the semester’s end with the winter break would create a smoother transition, boosting motivation and productivity.

This transition period complicates teaching, as teachers avoid adding grades after finals but must assign graded work to continue the curriculum, leading to confusion. While some classes progress in the first semester, this flow is inevitably disrupted by the abrupt schedule shift in the second semester.

“Whether it’s new students transferring from different schools or students from the previous semester, those two weeks are always weird because you have to just continue with the curriculum but we also try to avoid grading anything during that time,” AP Government teacher and ITA State Council Representative Zane Pang said. “If we just started school a week earlier and added a week to the Spring semester, we could end the semester with finals before the break which would align with most other schools and allow us to come back after break with a clean slate.” 

According to Pang, adding an extra week to the second semester would be beneficial, especially for AP teachers, as that semester is interrupted by AP testing. Similarly, 11th grade math, English and science teachers lose a week in spring to SBAC testing. 

Returning to school while still feeling the effects of the previous semester can be demotivating for students, who are often aware of their final grades and eager for a fresh start.

“Finishing finals and then having the long winter break with New Years and everything really feels like a conclusion to the year so it’s always annoying that when we come back we still have to deal with everything from the previous semester,” senior Yuri Song said. “It just makes everything feel choppy and doesn’t really let people start the new semester with the same excitement as they feel right after the break.”

While this change will not happen this year, it may be possible in the future. In the meantime, students and teachers alike should try to make the best of this time by reflecting on the previous months, setting new goals for the coming semester or filling any gaps in learning to best prepare for the next semester.