As the school year progresses it can feel long and repetitive. Wake up after wake up, students find themselves wondering when there will be another break or even an extra day off. The Grosse Pointe Public School System (GPPSS) has made choices regarding breaks resulting in four additional days added on to breaks for this year.
The schedule changes include having December break last from Dec. 21 to Jan. 6 and adding two extra days to Easter weekend in late April. As there were lots of factors to consider when adding and removing days from breaks, GPEA Union members, such as Co-President Taryn Louglin, had to strategically negotiate where extra time off was necessary.
“We identified the problems that we saw and then the districts came back with the calendar that we ended up agreeing to,” Loughlin said.
Some of the problems they encountered included that if the standard vacation schedule was followed, students and teachers would be in school for only the Monday before December break and also only the Friday following December break. GPEA Union Co-President Jaqueline Shelson deemed these two days to be unproductive in the classroom.
“Coming to school for one day on Monday, Dec. 22, is not really a great learning opportunity,” Shelson said.
Additionally, even taking out the aspect of productivity in shortened weeks, it is also a recurring issue that families leave for vacation early or come back to school late if there is not a full week of school. According to Loughlin, having enough students present on the days surrounding breaks has been an issue in the past.
“We need to have a certain percentage of students to be able to make count, so inevitably they proposed just giving us those two extra days,” Loughlin said.
Highlighting another benefit, Shelson points out that changing the break schedule allows for the GPPSS to align better with the rest of the school districts in the state.
“A lot of other school districts have those two weeks off, so by having those two weeks, we’re more in line with other districts. This is nice for teachers who don’t live in the district,” Shelson said.
Although the new schedule causes breaks to fit in more smoothly, there are some consequences to a few extra days off. For students taking rigorous courses, the days leading up to exams are crucial. Adding an extra day at the end of December break leaves classes with only five school days between the break and midterms, leaving Stella Fry ’26 with some concerns.
“I think that these changes will allow for less work days in class and days to get caught up on work, and I feel like we will just be covering the material quickly.,” Fry said.
Despite some potential cramming with losing school days, extra days taken off of the school year provides some time off for students and teachers. As she takes classes with heavy course loads, Fry awaits the extended breaks to relax and reset during the long school year.
“I really like the new schedule because we have more days off and I think that students will benefit from the longer breaks because they have more time to rest and take a break from school,” Fry said.
