As the 2023-2024 school year comes to end, C. K. McClatchy students spoke of the hardest part of the year.

K. McClatchy is amongst several Sacramento City Unified School high schools that use the semester system which splits the school year into a fall semester and the spring semester. Those same semesters are split into two which breaks the school year into four quarters. Those quarters are used to help students distinguish the sports that they do and their progress on their school work.

A poll of 20 students, sophomores and seniors, resulted in 45% of students who responded saying that 3rd quarter was the hardest for them. An additional 35% said that  2nd quarter was the most challenging. The remaining 20% were split between 1st and 2nd quarter.

Sophomore Colm Meyer, said, “November to January is the worst due to its depressive mood.”

When it comes to the 3rd quarter weather  and time had a big role to play.

“I say that the 3rd quarter is the worst because the weather makes me feel unmotivated,” said junior Keana Maxwell.

“The end was so close yet so far and the weather made me so said,” said senior Ellie Sutliff

According to Edweek, teachers feel a similar way, “Using a LinkedIn poll, we asked teachers to weigh in on the hardest season for teaching, and over 2,400 of our followers participated in the poll. The top season selected? Spring, which accounted for 40 percent of the poll’s votes.”

Junior Chloe Deangelo said, “I think this quarter was the hardest because that’s when I started to feel burnt out and the workload was more.”

For the 10% who voted for the fourth quarter they said that finals played a huge part in their decision.

“I’d say that fourth quarter because of all of the finals you take to make sure you pass and the lack of break,” said junior Margret Gibney