At the sound of each year’s final bell, students burst out the doors into summer break, during which they can devote time to activities outside of academics. As the longest break of the year, summertime allows students to escape the grind of studying for stressful tests and completing hours of homework each night.

But not everyone spends the summer away from school. Some students take summer school classes to fulfill graduation requirements or make room for other courses during the school year.

The district recently announced plans to add two new science courses — History and Philosophy of Science and Organic Chemistry — to the summer school program for 2019. Unlike most academic courses offered during the summer, these will not be offered to students during the school year.

Academic courses exclusive to summer school pile additional pressure on students. We are forced to choose between taking a challenging course that might help us stand out when applying to college and utilizing time away from school in other fulfilling ways. Students may have to miss out on taking a family vacation, working  a job with regular hours or participating in internship opportunities, all because they can’t take the course during the school year.

Adding these academic courses solely to summer school may allow students to take courses that will challenge them more than other summer offerings would. Yet this limits their opportunities by taking away weeks of their summers.

Classes being considered for summer school should also be ozstandard school year to reach the broadest group of interested students. This limits the barriers imposed by summer school exclusives and leaves the decision of when to take a class to students. Busy students who would like to take an academic class available in summer school would be able to do so. Others who would rather add the course to their normal schedule could make that choice instead and utilize their summer to get away from school and explore other interests.

Making courses available during the school year and the summer would likely require additional resources, such as teachers, classrooms and funding, but the drawbacks of summer exclusive courses should be the primary concern. Students should be able to dictate their own summers and not feel pressured to take additional summer classes for the district’s convenience.

After all, the school exists for the students.