To facilitate the alleviation of pressures relating to assignment work, Principal James Antonelli sent out an email to remind the staff that teachers should not give students work over break that would be due the day back, and that no assessments would be given that day, either.

“I’m not playing games with this,” he said. “There will be no tests or quizzes the [day students get back] after a vacation. […] I don’t micromanage the faculty on how or when they give their projects out and so forth; […] my expectation is that something should not be due the Monday after the […] break[s].”

The principal went into detail of what he found acceptable for teachers to give their classes, explaining that a project assigned on a Thursday or Friday is unreasonable if the students return on a Tuesday as it is excessive.

“That will be communicated with the staff. This is not a new policy. I’ve been doing this for three years,” he said.

He then gave an examples of assignment with different requirements and attributed some requirements for those assignments to be given.

“If it’s a project that requires research, requires citations, [ … ] a bibliography, five pages, and so forth, assigning that, you know, three days before a long vacation or any vacation, I think [is] pretty excessive. That means you’re going to be doing something over break. Right? I mean there’s no way you can have something assigned on a Wednesday [and come back with it due within a couple days of return],” said Antonelli.

Antonelli also explained that the policy only applies to the designated vacation breaks, highlighted in the calendar below.

The policy remains the same when it comes to cases of religious holidays.

“It’s that you as a student have to go to your teacher and let your teacher know that you’d appreciate some flexibility, and as long as you communicate that to the teacher and advocate for yourself about what time you need, you should be afforded that opportunity to complete your work.”