Imagine a Christmas break where, when you leave school, you leave your stress behind as well. Now imagine a worrisome break where students have to spend their well earned days frantically studying for some of the biggest tests this school year: Midterms.The second, unfortunately, could very well be our reality this school year.

The days and even weeks leading up to the testing are full of endless studying and worrying. Who would want to spend their precious time off from school still worrying about testing and school? Would it not be beneficial for everyone to take these tests before break and have not only a worry-free break but come back to school with a fresh start to learn new material?

This year students have one of the longest Christmas breaks in many years and in that extensive amount of time off from school, memory is lost.

The majority of Christmas break is spent sharing time with family and using new presents. So, how much of this supposedly relaxing break will be spent studying for midterms? Virtually none of it.

Midterms, which count for approximately 10% of student’s overall grades, are a substantial part of every school year. Students need to have time to study for these tests and the only time to accomplish this is during their well deserved break. It’s not only the students that enjoy this time off but also the teachers. Being humans too, teachers would like to take some time off from their busy lives and spend it with their families that they, just like the students, may have not seen in quite some time.

If midterms were after break, teachers would be constantly emailing concerned students regarding the upcoming testing while they’re attempting to relax. Not only would the teachers most likely receive many emails, but having to grade midterms while teaching new material to a class could be overwhelming for them. Not only emails but also grading these midterms could overlap other grades for the class, which could cause the teacher to have to do more work.

The only downfall to moving the midterms to before Christmas break is how semester courses would handle midterms as the tests.

Semester courses, which are classes that only last two 9 weeks grading periods, use the midterm exam as their final. These classes would have midterms before break, so they would have multiple days without doing any work before the grading period ended. This problem can be fixed quickly by having only the semester courses take the exam after Christmas break. This would allow for all lessons to be taught and able to be evaluated on the midterm.

Moving the challenging and stressful testing to before Christmas break could prove to be beneficial for both teachers and students.