Winter break comes once a year, a time when students can hang out with their friends, play video games, go on vacation, and most of all, relax from the excessive amount of schoolwork that they have. Unfortunately, school basically follows them into the break with haunting conditions.

First semester exams come this year just about a week and a half after school resumes from winter break. This is completely unfair to all students, academically and socially.

The whole point of winter break is that it serves as a break. A break means, taking time of something one has been doing, or having a rest. The fact that students have exams soon after winter break defeats the purpose of having the break in the first place.

Many students and their families would like to go on vacation and spend time together, but having exams takes away from that, as parents pressure their children to study in preparation for the exams.

Students are not the only people who can benefit from having exams before the winter break starts.

If exams were not after break, then teachers would not have to spend hours of class time reviewing exam packets for subjects because they would already be done and over with. Teachers could spend time teaching the new second semester curriculum instead of wasting time on the old stuff.

Some may say that students should utilize winter break and the extra days after break so they can have more knowledge of the material and more time to study for the exams, whereas this is completely canceled out by one overlooked factor.

Weather, believe or not can make a big difference in preparation for exams. Exams happen in the middle of January. Snow is also something that occurs in January and February. When school is canceled because of snow, precious review time is taken away.

Although the exam times throughout the year are not expected to change, it is something that should definitely be looked deeper into, especially since CHS wants its students to perform at the best level possible.