As winter break is just around the corner, Perry students are buzzing with excitement. Unlike fall and spring break, winter break is at its full length, being just over 2 weeks. With this information and with coronavirus still being highly contagious and spreading like a wildfire, perhaps winter break should be even longer. 

This year, fall and spring break were shortened by a week, so this was something new to get used to. This is very strange and unfortunate for the students and teachers, as it feels very off. Luckily, winter break is not being shortened, and students are going to be able to relax and enjoy their time off.

With this being said, winter break should be longer and extended to Martin Luther King Jr. day which falls on Monday, January 18th. That could work very nicely, assuming school could resume on that day or the day after that. The reason being for this decision would be to keep COVID-19 down, so numbers would stay down and prevent people from getting sick. 

Think about it, with winter break comes Christmas, and many people travel for holidays, especially Christmas. This means many people flying on planes, going to other states or even countries, and possibly getting sick unknowingly. Then when school starts back in early January, many people could have the coronavirus and spread it even more to people around them. 

However, if school was pushed back to the 18th, then it would give people time to get over their sickness, if they had symptoms, so less people would get COVID-19. The standard amount of time for people with coronavirus to fully get over their sickness is two weeks, and that is also the amount of time people can tell if they have coronavirus, so they can quarantine themselves.

The board met on December 9th to discuss this topic, and a conclusion has been made. After much talk of what should be done, even with teachers voicing their opinions of why the school should shut down, they came to an unusual resolution. 

They voiced that when school resumes at its normal return date, January 5th, that students could choose whether or not to come back to school or to do online until MLK day. In essence, teachers do not have a choice whether they want to come back or not, and in addition they will have to teach students in the classroom and students online at the same time. However, if break was longer, then this decision would not have been made and would not be a problem.

CUSD is one of the last schools to talk about shutting down. All of the neighboring schools are shut down or are deciding to shut down, which is a smart decision. Even extending the break by two weeks is not a crazy amount to extend it to, and it will make everything so much safer for everyone.

Regardless, winter break being a little over two weeks long is a much needed break from learning or from teaching. Hopefully school break will be extended but if not, we will see how it goes. If it does not shut down for 2 more weeks and we do come back, the numbers could skyrocket, and we might be forced to shut down due to the extremely high numbers. Hopefully this decision will be for the good of all.