Every year the county allows for “no-homework weekends,” which serve to give students a much needed break.
The weekend is called “Planning for your Future Weekend” and is meant to provide the juniors with more time to focus on ACTs and SATs and seniors with time to make way on college applications. It also allows sophomores and freshmen to make progress on their SSL hours.
There are specific weekends that go on the calendar the staff receive, yet some teachers fail to acknowledge them.
Some teachers adhere to the no-homework weekend, but most teachers completely ignore it and expect students to do the assignments anyway. Some will even assign the homework on the preceding Thursday and tell students that technically it isn’t homework for the weekend.
But for most students, including myself, assignments given on Thursday that are not due until Monday mean homework over the weekend.
“The no-homework weekends don’t even seem real. I feel like we always have homework to do or teachers who feel their classes are more important than anything else find ways around it,” junior Katie Mikalis said.
A good number of students play sports and are in clubs or have jobs and other responsibilities to deal with outside of school.
Teachers who feel the need to give homework on a weekend specifically called for no homework are absurd. The no homework weekends are given randomly throughout the school year.
Each staff member gets a calendar at the beginning of the school year listing important notices. Unfortunately, not all teachers remember to look at it.
A majority of students during that weekend will not be relaxing like teachers assume they will be. They will be catching up on college applications, studying for the SATs and ACTs, or finishing homework that has built up on them so far this quarter.
It is understandable for teachers to give homework over the weekends because we are in high school and as our classes get more advanced, there will be more work. But what does not make sense is why teachers can’t just move the test or quiz date to Wednesday. It is reasonable that they stick to a schedule and can’t always move things around, but one day should not make that big of a difference.
Rather than assigning homework due Monday, some teachers assign it due Tuesday so they aren’t technically giving homework, “I like the idea of it but I think teachers have found a way around it and that I think we need to figure out,” English teacher Melissa Kaplan said.
Several teachers make their plans weeks in advance and forget about the no-homework weekends due to how administration does not send out reminders about it often.
In order to give seniors and juniors adequate time to study for the SATs and ACTs or fill out college applications, administration “started this program at least five years ago…[It is]meant for students to have time to plan for their future,” Principal Kimberly Boldon said.
It is a great way to allow students to take time off of homework and focus on other important responsibilities.
Unless my future consists of taking notes for AP Psychology, then I don’t think this weekend is doing its job.

Ava Castelli

Staff Writer