This year, the Shawnee Mission School District (SMSD) is tried something new for its Thanksgiving break. In past years, students have only had off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the days after. However, this time, students got the whole week off.

Thanksgiving is always held on the fourth Thursday of every November. Being a national holiday, school districts often give their students time off for the holiday.

Thanksgiving is also renowned for being a time where families get together. This means that many students are often gone leading up to Thanksgiving break. Having the break be extended this year will give students and families more time to go on vacation or visit their relatives without worrying about missing any school.

This is especially useful because Thanksgiving break is also notorious for being a good time to shop. All of Thanksgiving week usually has good deals in some of the most popular stores. This comes to a head on the Friday after Thanksgiving, called “Black Friday”.

This day is known for almost every store and company putting some or most of their items on sale for consumers. Often times, it is the biggest day of the year for sales.

On the next Monday, when students are back in school, “Cyber Monday” occurs. This is really just Black Friday but for online stores such as Amazon.

The extended period that students have off this year is causing some people to call it “Fall break” as opposed to “Thanksgiving break”. This is because now that the entire week is off, it is reminiscent of Spring break, which also lasts one week. The two extra days off raises the question, why did the district do this?

SMSD has always given its students a “Fall break”. However, this break was just having a random Thursday and Friday off. This made the Fall break feel like nothing more than an extra-long weekend. In fact, parent-teacher conferences would occasionally give students a Thursday and Friday off.

The district may have decided to change this simply because it makes sense. Why have two random days off when it can be added to Thanksgiving break to actually give students a full week? Putting the two days before Thanksgiving also makes it reflect Spring break, giving it a similar appeal.

Whatever the reason, students will surely enjoy having a week off before a three-week lead up to finals. It will hopefully serve as a nice recharge, free of stress and anxiety, that students can look forward to before Winter break.