A majority of U.S. schools, both public and private have a fall break. Darlington, on the other hand does not, which leaves students questioning as to why we don’t have a fall break.

“As a school, to keep our accreditation, we are required to have 170 scheduled days of school during the academic year,” director of upper school Matt Peer said. “Since Darlington is a boarding and day school we must look to create an school calendar that will benefit the needs of the majority of our students.”

Students think that it is necessary to have a fall break because it allows for time to not think about academics.

“Fall break is a great time to recenter yourself before the ever so busy season. It’s also ideal for students to have time to catch up on work to allow us to finish the semester strong,” senior Maddie Knight said. “Without fall break I feel like I will continue only functioning at 82% productivity.”

Others think that due to the amount of time we get off and that time we start, this is the reason that we don’t have a fall break.

“It probably has something to do with the fact that the breaks we do have are usually longer than most schools around here because we have students that travel greater distances to go home,” senior Tommy Atha said.

Students from the surrounding schools reflect on why they think fall break is needed especially if they started school later like Darlington, but it got rid of their fall break.

“No, because then it would be just school straight through an entire year with no breaks and would be hard to stay sane,” a Pepperell senior said.

If Darlington was to add a fall break, it would replace some of the long weekends.

“Darlington would need to add additional school days to the school year. Since we (and the local public schools) value longer Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Years,  and Spring Breaks, the only way to accomplish this would be to shortening the summer vacation and going to school after Memorial day and ending in June,” Peer said.

Students express that they would be fine with having a week cut off of summer to compensate for a fall break.

“I personally would prefer if the school year started a week earlier if that meant we got a fall break,” freshman Stephanie Hughes said.

A majority of students thinks that Darlington should consider adding a fall break.

“Darlington should consider having a fall break to allow all us student and staff the adequate and deserving time off,” Knight said.