Students at Jackson-Reed are no strangers to term deadlines and the preceding weeks of stress and work. Each term, there is usually a school-wide deadline where all work is due and teachers have the following week to finalize grades. This year, DCPS set the final work deadline an entire week before the end of school. This makes no sense, as the end of the school year is often filled with ungraded content. The student work deadline should coincide with the last day of school. 

This situation doesn’t just frustrate students, but makes no sense for teachers as well. By having to supervise students that know their efforts aren’t being scored, teachers lose grading time. Students are annoyed by the inconvenience of having to attend unnecessary classes, while teachers are distracted by students and forcing them to spend personal time to input grades. 

Since teachers need extra time to finalize grades, DCPS should redistribute the teacher development days to the last week of school so teachers can effectively meet their grade deadline. This solves the issue of students being in school and not doing any work, while maintaining continuity for both student and teacher deadlines.

Usually, the last week of school takes place when all student work is complete. While some students are turning in late assignments, most are spending class time doing noneducational activities like watching movies. School laptops are expected to be returned well before school is over, giving many students no access to school resources during the last week. With that deadline, even the administration is encouraging the mindset that school is no longer in session. 

This last week of “school” creates confusion and annoyance for both students and teachers throughout DCPS. Continuing school causes students to lose valuable time that should be spent starting their summer and taking a well-deserved break.