March break- or, now it’s just spring break, but it’s about to start! Although, we were supposed to have this break last month and it got postponed. Here, at the Eye on the Storm newspaper, we were wondering, how did students feel about this change to the break? Was it a good thing to move it to the end of the quad? Or, were students desperately waiting for March break to come only for it to be moved to April? We conducted a survey that was open for student responses from March 19-26, 2021. This gave us the opportunity to get your opinions on this change, so let’s take a look at the findings!
Our survey started off with two simple demographic questions to gain a better understanding of who our participants were. Students were simply asked about their grade and gender. These questions revealed that a majority of the students who took part in this survey were in grade 10 and identified as female.
Moving onto actual survey questions, students were first asked if they knew about March Break being moved. Surprisingly, at the time the survey was conducted, it was revealed that about 4% of survey participants did not realize the break was even moved! Next, students were asked how badly they needed the March break to start in March on a scale of 1-10, with one being “Not that bad, I don’t mind the change” and ten being “I’M DYING. I NEED MARCH BREAK NOW”. The numbers revealed that students desperately needed a break from school, with 58.4% of students voting a 6 and above, leaving only about 41.7% of students to vote a 5 and below.
Despite this, it seems students are accepting and are able to still go along with the change to the break with 58.3% of survey participants claiming they either didn’t mind or didn’t care about the change and only 33.3% of students saying they were unhappy.
When students were asked whether they want spring break in March or in April, the majority (62.3%) voted on having it in March. Why is this, you might wonder. Well, one student wrote, “Because I am exhausted and I need a break soon,” another wrote “I chose March because, there are a few long weekends in April,” and a third student wrote, “Ramadan in March break is more preferable”. With the fast-paced learning this year in quadmesters, it is understandable that students await their breaks and want them to come by sooner. However, some students also just wanted the break in March because that is what they are used to, with one student commenting, “Because that’s how it’s always been, and I get to sleep in, now I have to wait to sleep in for a week”. On the other hand, students who preferred the break to be in April commented, “The weather in april is a lot better than march weather and its more regulated then crazy temperature changes. It would give me an opportunity to go outside on walks and runs more,” and that “April just feels like a better month for no reason? Sorry”.
These gloomy feelings from learning that the Spring break was pushed back were expected by the JCR Student Government and the Student Leadership Committee (from DDSB@Home Virtual Secondary School). To combat this, they organized a week of fun for the week that March break should have been on, with JCR’s “Week of March Madness” and DDSB@Home’s Spirit Week! So, what did students think about this week? Did it help them feel better about March break being pushed to April? Well, it was revealed that students had some mixed thoughts on this, with a quarter of participants saying no it didn’t, another quarter of participants saying yes it did, 29.2% of participants saying no, but admitting they liked the effort, and 20.8% of participants saying they simply didn’t care in the first place. One student additionally commented “I believe they really should change spirit days for online school to accommodate the nature of it more. Online and physical school are different fundamentally and some ppl still dont understand that” in regards to the Spirit Week hosted by DDSB@Home Secondary.
Although now that Spring break has already started, after this year’s extra-long wait, whether you wanted it in March or April, I think students can agree that they are happy it is finally Spring Break. Thank you again to all the students who took part in this survey, and I hope everyone can have an amazing Spring Break!
