Four years ago, the Oak Park Unified School District pushed back the beginning and end of the school year. This was a decision made by the Board of Education, staff and parents of students attending Oak Park schools. The Board also decided to schedule first semester finals prior to winter break, exempting students from studying over the holidays.

“It’s a true break for the students,” Superintendent Tony Knight said. “We encourage everybody to take a mental break because we know that’s important for people’s mental health and stress. That’s what started all of this.”

OPUSD starts two weeks earlier than Las Virgenes Unified School District, which includes Agoura Hills High School, Calabasas High School, Indian Hills High School and ten middle and elementary schools. OPUSD also began about three weeks before the Conejo Valley Unified School District which had their first day of classes Aug, 22.

Four years have gone by since the two-week shift in Oak Park’s district schedule, and the current seniors are now the first graduating class to have experienced an entire high school career in this structure.

According to Knight, the main reason for the change was to reduce stress for the high school students and give them an uninterrupted break over the winter holidays.

“Over 70 percent of our high school students are taking AP courses, and the AP exams are in early May,” Knight said. “Students were playing catch up all year to get ready for those AP exams.”

This additional time gave students an advantage that they didn’t have previously.

“Once the AP exam happened, it was like a month afterwards where there wasn’t a lot to do in the class because they basically completed it,” Knight said. “AP curriculum was already intense and was too compressed already that it was causing it to become compressed even further.”

Students spent the entire winter break doing projects and studying for finals so there needed to be a change, according to Knight.

“The process to consider the change involved holding open meetings with parents at every school that were held in the morning and at night so anyone would be able to attend. We then surveyed the parents and the staff,” said Knight.

Fifty-five percent of staff and over 70 percent of parents voted in favor of this proposition. The Board of Education approved the change by a 5-0 vote. Several students, however, haven’t entirely agreed with the structure of the schedule and the decisions made by the Board of Education.

“My sole complaint was my experience last spring with near-simultaneous AP exams and class finals,” senior Sylvia Cruz-Albrecht wrote to the Talon. “However, teachers made an effort to be flexible with AP schedules, so I still feel that the school year time frame is sustainable and beneficial to students.”

Cruz-Albrecht said her positive opinion of the schedule change does not equally apply to its effect on sports. Cruz-Albrecht runs cross country in the fall and track in the spring.

“The early start of the school year means that we have a couple extra weeks to do afternoon practice base training before the races begin,” Cruz-Albrecht wrote. “However, the drawback is the high temperatures that we experience during the afternoons … we have had to run in a lot of ninety-five [degree] days in the past few weeks.”

According to senior and lacrosse player Max Manyak, the new schedule is a good change for the district.

“It is fantastic to not worry about finals over winter break, because winter break is when I get my mind set off-season,” Manyak wrote to the Talon.

Although Manyak has enjoyed this change, academically speaking, it keeps him from going to as many college recruitings as he would like. However, Knight believes that the schedule has more redeeming qualities than it does those that are inadequate.

“Their vacation might be a little less expensive, and places are less crowded and it’s easier to travel right away if late May, early June,” Knight said. “Some people have told us that they have problems with coordinating camp schedules for private camps in the summer … We also know that some of the camps have accommodated that.”

Knight reported that no future changes in schedule will come anytime soon, due to the reason that the current schedule is working well.

“We have really good rationale,” Knight said. “For kids and everyone else, it’s essential that that is built into the calendar. It’s a good life model.”

There is no plan to revise this shift in scheduling.

“I am glad that these changes have been made,” Cruz-Albrecht wrote. “Although our school year doesn’t align with the schedules of other schools, it is tailored well to our school district.”