Saturday classes have long been a topic of debate on campus, and this year is no different.

Saturday classes are a common part of many New England boarding schools. They originally served as a way to keep students out of trouble in the local towns, and maintain academic momentum into the weekend, according to The Resilience Initiative.

With the large day-student population, measuring approximately 170 day students in 2022 and 290 boarding students, according to the Williston school profile on their website. With these numbers, Saturday class at Williston may seem like an antiquated and irrelevant practice.

Among the top boarding schools in New England, there is a divide between those who do and don’t have Saturday classes.

Schools such as Deerfield, Phillips Andover, and Northfield Mount Hermon do not have Saturday classes; schools like Salisbury, Groton, and Taft have them every weekend. Williston and Hotchkiss fall in between, with classes alternating every week, and Phillips Exeter has  roughly six class Saturdays in a school year, according to those school’s websites.

According to Robert Hill, Head of School, Williston Academy, before they merged with the Northampton School for Girls, had classes every Saturday, along with mandatory chapel in the morning and a regimented dress code with jackets and ties.

“From my perspective,” Hill said, “having every other Saturday class strikes a nice balance, creating a pace and calendar that seems to work well for our culture, both academic and non-academic.”

This year, Williston will have 15 Saturday classes.

Saturday classes also make up for the half-day on Wednesday, an accommodation made for the athletes of the school who have to travel for games in the afternoon.

Jaxon Axelman, a senior, is a football player and a boarder. He doesn’t like Saturday classes, but sees why they are important.

“I don’t like Saturday classes because I have to wake up early an extra day and get work done,” Jaxon told The Willistonian. “However, on game days it allows me to get up early and prevents me from being lazy and sleeping in.”

For day students, however, a different set of challenges are presented by Saturday classes.

“My freshman year I had a hard time adjusting to missing so much time with my family and even finding rides home because of Saturday classes,” said Vivian Walker, a senior day student from Westfield, Mass. “I often miss a lot of family events and get-togethers.”

Jaxon said it was not a hard change to go from no Saturday classes at his former school to the current schedule.

“They honestly weren’t difficult because every single person was doing,” said the senior. “We were in it together.”

Like Jaxon, Hill also sees Saturday classes as a way of unifying the student body.

“Williston’s weekend spirit and activities are tied to our being together, to being present,” Hill said. Culture and community are strengthened by being together more, not less, and I think boarding schools provide a last bastion where those important connections are baked into our mission.”