The final school bell rings and rushing to get out of school I can sense a feeling of relief on everyone's face that summer break is finally here.

I am a rising senior in high school and to this day I still do not understand the reason behind summer assignments. The argument many teachers may use is to keep our minds fresh over the summer or to make sure students have a background on the subject before coming into the class on the first day. The reality of it is that high school students' summer breaks are never real breaks. Coming into sophomore and junior year the dreadful SAT and ACT are two tests you cannot move out of the way. The summer is a very popular time to study for these two tests since during the school year, time is of the essence. In addition, students will use endless amounts of time applying to and trying to find the best institution or university where students will spend their next four years. Not to mention a number of high school students, including me, have fallen victim to taking summer courses which you must work on for months.

As you can see, being a high school student means the summers have little "break" to offer, which means that summer assignments have little priority. Walking into class on the first day you can often see over half the class starting with a zero because of these summer assignments. The fact is that the content in summer assignments are often repeated in class anyway so the easiest fix for students and teachers is to get rid of them.

Ethan Pham

McLean