Thanksgiving is one of America’s most beloved holidays. It’s a time for families to get together and be thankful for one another and their lives. As a result, in most school districts, students get a few days off to celebrate the holiday. In Broward County, students have Wednesday through Friday off for the national holiday, but in other counties around the United States, students and teachers get varying amounts of days off.

Another example of the discrepancies in the length of Thanksgiving breaks across the United States can be seen close by in Palm Beach County. Their students and staff have had the entire week surrounding  Thanksgiving off for four or five years now.

So, should we have the entire week off surrounding Thanksgiving in Broward County? Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s United States government teacher, Jeffery Foster, seems to think so. 

“My wife is a teacher in Palm Beach and my kids go to school in Palm Beach … I think that we can find some days throughout the year to allow for us to have the entire Thanksgiving week off,” Foster said.

Some may say that we already have too many days off during the second quarter of the school year, with winter break, but I personally disagree. I think Thanksgiving week is a more important time to have the opportunity to get together with family and friends that you normally might not be able to spend time with. The December holidays should not be the only time for family gatherings to occur.

Jeffery Foster is very passionate about being able to have the time to spend with his extended family. He and his entire family are spending the week in Orlando, so he is choosing to use his limited vacation days to make sure he can be with his family.

“My family is planning our first Thanksgiving together since 1999 … my parents are getting older so this might be the last year we are all going to spend together in one place,” Foster said.

Without the opportunity to attend family events like these without using limited vacation days, people in Broward county might be forced to miss out on experiences that they would get to enjoy if they didn’t have work and school.  There are plenty of other days that could be turned into mandatory school days so that an extra two days surrounding Thanksgiving could be excused.