Before high school even started, juniors and seniors were stressed about completing homework assignments, finishing reading and studying for tests.

However, we don’t blame teachers for assigning summer homework.

We realize that it is necessary because of the copious amount of material on the College Board’s AP exams.

But there is an easy solution.

National AP exams are given in the first and second weeks of May, and those dates cannot be moved.

Consequently, there is too much material for the teachers to teach in the amount of time given.

However, if the school year’s start (and end) dates were shifted back a week, AP teachers wouldn’t need to assign work in the summer.

After all, moving the starting date back would put us on a schedule similar to other private schools in the Sacramento area (St. Francis’s first day of classes was Aug. 17 and Jesuit’s was Aug. 25, while we didn’t start until Aug. 30.).

Therefore, a later start would actually be more convenient for families, considering that some Country Day students have siblings at other schools.

Additionally, changing the schedule could allow finals to be held before Winter Break, giving students a real vacation.

Not only would the schedule change give more time for AP teachers to prepare their students for the tests, but it would also eliminate the weeks after AP’s when AP teachers give juniors either free time or extra projects that aren’t essential.

Of course, high school could start a week earlier than the lower and middle schools, but this would cause problems, as many high-school students have siblings in younger grades.

One downfall to starting school a week earlier is that the first summer when the change goes into effect will be a week shorter than the previous summers.

However, AP students wouldn’t be spending the last weeks of summer on lengthy assignments.
While high-school principal Sue Nellis said she had received negative responses to the idea of a schedule change at administrative meetings, Sandy Lyon and Christy Vail, heads of the middle and lower schools, both said that they would be open to discussing a revised schedule.

According to Vail, the lower school teachers would have to confer, but would be willing to make changes deemed beneficial for the “Country Day community.”

And that change would definitely benefit the high school.