Milpitas is home to many immigrant families. At MHS, we take pride in celebrating our cultural diversity and creating a community that is welcoming to everyone. To accommodate our student population with roots in other countries, our Independent Study Policy should be more lenient in allowing students to visit families living abroad.
Independent study is a program used to help students keep up with educational content when they have to miss school. The policy allows students to miss 3 to 14 days of school as long as they follow six guidelines about when independent studies can be taken and what work should be completed, according to the student handbook. One of these guidelines states that “independent studies shall not be combined with district school breaks that are five or more days.”
This guideline may have been implemented as a measure to ensure students don’t fall behind with schoolwork. However, it creates a dilemma for many students with families living across the world: risk the consequences of unexcused absence or miss a rare opportunity to meet relatives.
For most working parents, winter break is the most convenient time of the year to travel abroad. Typically, adults have the most days off in late December, with employees often having a companywide shutdown between Christmas and New Years Day.
School breaks, including summer vacation, generally don’t align with that of other countries. The winter break in the Northern Hemisphere — and summer break in the Southern Hemisphere — is consistently in the last two weeks of December for schools in most countries. For many, it is the only possible time to meet cousins and relatives abroad.
I haven’t seen my cousins living in the United Kingdom for about a year. I haven’t seen my grandparents living in India for over two years. My parents work full-time jobs with inflexible schedules, making longer travel impossible anytime other than in the last two weeks of December.
A direct flight from San Francisco to New Delhi takes close to 16 hours; flights with layovers take more than 20 hours. Due to jet lag, full days lost to travel, and having to visit different parts of India to meet both my maternal and paternal families, two weeks is simply not enough time.
As an only child who was born and raised in California, my only family in the U.S. is my parents, so spending the holidays with my relatives halfway across the world is an experience I look forward to every year. Having the option to take short-term independent study after the break would be one I would appreciate greatly.
As the holiday season approaches, extended families come together for celebrations like Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa. Even for others who aren’t celebrating a religious or cultural holiday, the wintertime is perfect for festive activities and bonding with family.
While the new semester marks the beginning of new topics in class curriculums, it should be the student’s responsibility to keep up with their work if they choose to take independent study after winter break. Missing finals adds an additional burden to teacher’s lives and can be unfair to students who are present before winter break, so students should avoid taking independent study leaves then. Nonetheless, the independent study policy should become more flexible. School policy should not stand in the way of families visiting loved ones in countries across the world.
