Single session days tend to only be given on Election Day or towards the end of June, but this year was quite opposite. Students started the new school year following a half day schedule. This evoked an interesting question: Should the first day of school always be a half day?
Three weeks ago, an extreme heat wave scorched parts of New Jersey, including Union County. This prompted a half day given to students and teachers on the first two days of school.
The schedule change disrupted plans for teachers, but allowed students to have the whole afternoon to themselves.
Although the school is up-to-date with reliable air conditioning, the Scotch Plains Fanwood School District decided to go in accordance with the single session day schedule due to “heat indexes expected to make it feel like 100 degrees or higher.”
Personally, I think that the half days should have been given because of the heat—even though school is indoors and the air conditioning works.
However, it probably irked busy parents who had to work around the abrupt schedule change.
Because of the heat wave, you would think that all outdoor sports would be canceled, right? But surprisingly, not all of them were—considering school, which is indoors, got a half day.
In recent years, there has been an uprising in cases where students are collapsing on the field. Because of this, there should have been more postponement of events to ensure the safety of all student athletes.
With everything in mind, it would be better to follow the single session day schedule every first couple of days of the school year to alleviate initial jitters and so students can get a sense of their schedules. With this schedule, the first days are over in a blink of an eye, and everyone would start a fresh full week after the weekend break.
Some may argue half days will take away from the full first day experience, especially for freshmen who are unfamiliar with the building, it presents the opportunity to have shorter periods of repetitive introductions and help smoothly transition into the new year.
Kelly Brock, an English teacher at SPFHS, appreciated the adjusted schedule and would prefer if the first day of school would always be a half day.
“I think [half-days] allow that flexibility and it takes a little bit of the pressure off. It allows us to ease into the year,” Brock told The Fanscotian. “We’re all going to be tired at the end of the first [full] day, but I found that it being a half day, it was a good tired instead of like I’m falling over on my feet tired.”
Michael Abadir, a Chemistry teacher at SPFHS, felt excited after hearing about the schedule change.
“It did make it an easier transition to come back to school with the new schedule, and we only had two days of school and then the weekend. Having a half day was a treat to sort of ease in and then the following week was a full week of the full day. That was probably the hardest transition for most kids on Monday morning,” Abadir said.
That feeling of getting out of school early is always pleasant, and I am sure everyone agrees with that. Shifting from summer break straight back into school may be overwhelming for some, so the idea of having the shortened time will make for a calm opening to a new year.
