This school year has been different. Everything is different since the previous years.  Schools in El Paso, including Bowie High School, added intersessions to this year’s calendar. But what is intersession? They are are some good and relaxing vacations for students and teachers after each nine weeks of school. Some concerned parents are not happy about this; they prefer their kids to keep going to school rather than staying at home without doing anything. But what do teachers think about this? What are students’ opinions?

What do you think about intersection?

Mr. Olague, the art teacher here at Bowie High School, thinks that intersession is important and good for students and teachers’ mental health. ‘’ Being here at school, waking up early, and spending all of our day here makes us not only physical tired but mentally too,’’ Olague said.

Ms. Urquidi, the reading teacher at Bowie High School also gave her opinion about this controversial topic. “I think that intersession really helps us to rest and have more time to do other stuff rather than just working,” she said. “Intersession helps us teachers and students to rest to have more energy when we come back after the break.”

Rubi Romano, a classmate, thinks that the breaks have really helped her to catch up on her missing assignments and low grades. She thinks that intersection motivates her to come to school because she miss her friends and teachers.

Do you think it’s okay for every 9 weeks to have a week off?

At first, Mr. Olague was not happy about the idea, but later he saw that the one week off really helped him and his students.‘’ I don’t know about other students and teachers, but I was that my students were motivated to come to school and came more energized than ever,’’ he said.

“Well, at first it was weird because it was something new to us teachers and students, I was not mad because nobody can say no to some god vacations, but I was not 100% happy because I also like to work and be with my kids,” Ms Urquidi said.

“I think it’s definitely good that we have a week off, in that week off we can catch up with some low grades but overall, it help us to change the routine, we get to wake up late and rest a lot. Changing the routine occasionally is great while it lasts,’’Rubi Romano said.

Would you like to change it?

“No, intersection makes me have more time to rest, and to finish some pending work, intersection helped me to be more mentally stable and spend more time with my family,” Mr. Olague said.

“Well, it’s a hard decision, sometimes when I’m very tired yes, but in the other side I cannot stay at home without doing anything, spending time with family and friends is good but my work is important too and I love it. Resting is good but work and spending time with my kids just makes my tiredness go away,’’ Ms. Urquidi said.

“Yes and no, sometimes yes because I’m not necessarily exhausted to go a week off, I miss my friends and being here at school, but in the other side there’s days where I can’t even wake up in the morning to come to school. I live in Juarez so it’s very hard to wake up at 4 a.m. and spend a long time to cross the border in the cold mornings. Some days feel like hell,’’ Romano said.

What is your favorite thing about this school year so far?

“Being here with my students, getting to know them, their faces, and the things they like.  Resting was good during COVID, but I was also getting mentally tired of just being at home and not being my true self,” Olague said.

“Getting to know my students, getting to meet a lot of people and just being able to have a connection with them getting to know them and to make a strong bond,” Urquidi said.

“I got to meet a lot of people and I got to make a lot of friends, also one of my favorite things is that I got to get in sports to move my body around rather than just not doing anything,” Romano said.

Do you think that without intersession, students would be absent more often?

“I think students are still in the COVID mode; they are still not used to coming back to school. I think students are absent because they want to and are just not motivated to come, with intersection I think there’s no excuse for students to be absent,” Olague said.

“I think that a week off benefits teachers and students. I think it helps students to rest and to make them bored to stay home and motivate them to come to school; I feel intersection helps students to do things while we are off rather than do them while we are during school hours,” Urquidi said.

“I think that it just depends on some student’s mental health or motivation to come to school, you never know what someone can go through, because I get that sometimes is hard to come to school when you don’t feel like it,” Rubi said.

Do you think that intersession has a negative effect on students? 

“I think it has a little bit of both, students get to stay home and rest, because waking up early every day to school and spending all day here is mentally exhausting, but in the negative side, some students are just more motivated to stay home and are just not interesting in doing their job that is coming to school,” Olague said.

“I think it had a positive effect on students, because they are resting at home and resting is important, when you are mentally exhausted you just don’t have motivation, but I think that it has a positive effect in students,” Urquidi said.

“I think that it has a positive effect on students, we get to rest and just like I said earlier have time to ourselves and focus on our mental health because sometimes school can make us tired mentally, tiredness can affects us way more than physical tiredness,” Romano said