Solon High School (SHS) students will have a homework-free weekend Sept. 28-30. The homework-free weekend is a newly implemented plan in which students will have one weekend without homework.

SHS is one of the nation’s top schools, so the curriculum is expected to be rigorous. However, this comes with a rising level of stress. Ann Trocchio, a guidance counselor at SHS, said one of the main reasons the administration decided to implement the homework-free weekend is to reduce stress levels and allow students to decompress for a few days.

“It’s really across the board with all of our students to have one weekend where they’re not expected to really do anything,” Trocchio said. “Enjoy time with their family, friends, work on college applications, do some leisurely reading… It’s nice for students to have a little down time.”

Nathan Morgan, a senior at SHS, said he believes the homework-free weekend will be beneficial.

“If I had no homework, I could spend more time working on my college essays and getting other work done to better prepare for my future,” Morgan said. “… I feel like it will help a lot of people, not just me, with a lot of things. Even if it isn’t college based, [it will help with] extracurriculars and things like that.”

Stress is not the only reason. Joshua Frazier, an Assistant Principal at SHS, said college applications are time-consuming.

“We talked to… some of the seniors who had just went through the college application process, as well as some of the juniors who were going to go through the process,” Frazier said. “They all felt that a homework-free weekend would be extremely beneficial just because of the amount of time that they were putting into college applications, as well as the extracurricular activities that they are a part of.”

Additionally, the deadlines for college applications are quickly approaching.

“We took a look at everything on our calendar and that weekend falls prior to Oct. 15 when students have to have everything submitted for their Nov. 1 deadline, so we thought that would be helpful,“ Trocchio said.

Although students and teachers will have to revert to a typical schedule at some point, teachers will not be able to give tests the following Monday.

“We asked teachers to stay away from giving something to come back to right on Monday… because we know it wouldn’t truly be a homework-free weekend, [because students would need to study],” Frazier said.While no plans to implement the homework-free weekend in the future have been set in stone, both Frazier and Trocchio said they can see it being established annually.

“We try not to make decisions in isolation, so we will receive feedback from our teachers and our students and see what they liked about it and get feedback and see how we want to proceed moving forward, but I can see it being an annual thing,” Frazier said.