Most students are left with a dilemma on the day of Halloween: Stay up late eating candy and either suffer the next day or skip school. Some also forgo the festivities entirely if it falls on a school day, sacrificing their Halloween experience so that they’re well rested for school.
There’s hardly a win-win situation when it comes to enjoying yourself on Halloween, which begs the question: Should California schools make the day after Halloween a student-free day, or keep the current system?
The Pros:
November 1st, the day after Halloween, yields the highest absences of any school day apart from the day before winter break in Los Angeles, according to a regional superintendent. Making this a school holiday would prevent these absences, which makes the school district look better and gets them better funding.
Also, students want to be able to enjoy their Halloween experience, and the threat of the next school day looming over them dissuades them from going out all night partying or trick-or-treating with friends. It’s been suggested for a while that Halloween is generally less celebrated when it falls on school nights. According to this article by Matt Douglas, Party City reported that they had $22 million less in sales in 2017, when Halloween was on a Monday, compared to 2016, when it was on a Saturday. The author doesn’t cite where this data came from, however.
The Cons:
Although no student is going to complain about an extra day off, many parents are concerned about how having more days away from school promotes chronic absenteeism, and also point out that it takes students away from learning time. I’m sure many students have heard their parents complain about the extra days off we’ve gotten in the last couple of years, since they’re the ones who have to work their schedules around our school-free days.
Plus, taking this extra day off would probably mean that we’d make up the missed day at the end of the school year. Sure, it’d only be a day, but it’s still extra time digging into our already short summer break.
In New York City, Diwali is considered a school holiday, so students already have the day after Halloween away from school. The Torrance school district could very well adopt the same schedule, but it’s hard to say when or if they would for sure.
So in short, a November 1st free day would definitely have its benefits, but we should also consider our parents who’ll be the ones dealing with the logistics of extra days off from school. We all love them, and no one wants to put any extra stress on the ones we love. 🙂
