As the school year comes to an end and summer begins, many students have decided to continue their education over the break via summer school.
“Summer school helps you get ahead or take necessary classes that you need to take, but don’t have room in your schedule,” junior Caitlin McMillan said.
For many, classes over the break allow for students to advance in the curriculum, putting them a step ahead of others when the next school year starts. Getting classes out of the way for credits is also a huge reason that students want to take summer school. Students would rather have classes they enjoy during the year than ones they only need for A-G credits.
“I think [summer courses] are good because you can either recuperate your credits or you can add on credits so you can open up your schedule for a new class the next year,” sophomore Aiden Lopez said.
Summer school also grants kids the opportunity to catch up on classes they didn’t do well in before. Many note that it is better for them to take a failed class over summer rather than in the new year because completely retaking that class forces them to remove a course from their schedule.
“I do it to get ahead, but it takes up time out of your summer and you have to do all this work really quickly,” sophomore Gianna Buondelmonte said. “So, you’re really pressured and stressed out in the summer when you should be having fun.”
Summer is the one long vacation given every year, and is meant to be a time of decompression and fun. Even though summer school can help take off pressure from the school year, it can overtake this much-needed break.
“I feel like taking a language over summer can be really difficult… and if they move on to a higher level of language in their year, they’re like, I learned nothing over the summer. So they’re going to do badly.” Buondelmonte said.
There are some classes that people feel should not be taken over summer. Courses that need in person learning like languages or more advanced subjects that require a teacher to guide students and should ideally be taken in person over the time that a school year provides.
“Certain subjects maybe [shouldn’t be taken], but other people have different abilities so they can excel in other subjects better during summer or during regular school year,” Lopez said.