Every summer, students seem to be free from school for two months. However, during these two months, students are assigned a summer reading book and often a math packet as well.
Summer reading is a waste of time because if students choose to read in the summer, they would much rather read a book of their own choosing than one of the boring books off of the school list. “If I had to read a book over the summer I would choose my own book and not just one of the boring school chosen books,” sophomore James Hollingsworth said.
Students often don’t take the time to read these books so there is no point in assigning them. Students come in after summer and don’t even know what book they were supposed to read. “I have never read my summer reading books and none of the teachers really care. They just sit there during the class where we go over the book,” junior Henry Guhl said.
Students won’t even bother reading school-assigned books over the summer because teachers don’t check them for credit. Also, students only have one meeting for the books at the beginning of the year and the teachers barely go over the books. “I never read my summer reading books because they don’t count for anything and the teachers hardly even go over them,” sophomore Adam Greenberg said.
The school doesn’t have a good choice of books, so students are not interested in reading them. If the school were to have a better selection of books, more students would choose to read them over the summer. “I would probably read the books if they offered a better selection of books,” Bloch said.
When it comes to summer math, the packets never end up being what students learn during the school year and are extremely easy and take no more than 20 minutes to complete. With an over two-month-long summer, these packets do little to further our comprehension of the subject and are forgotten within days of completion because of the lack of repetition. “I never remember what I complete in my math packets because they usually don’t have anything to do with my math and are too easy,” freshman Benjamin Bloch said.
Another reason that summer math is pointless is because teachers don’t take the time to check the packets. They seem to not care if students complete them or not. “I personally do not check the packets because I have found in the past that students either copy or work with a tutor to complete them,” math teacher Suzanne Pykosh said.
Summer should be truly free without having to worry about summer reading or math that is due next school year.

Dennis Child

Opinion Editor