The Oxford School District got into the holiday spirit this past week when an email sent out to the entire student body said the following: “We will be lifting the school day web restrictions and quotas during the holiday break. Enjoy your break and be safe.”

Principal Bradley Roberson allowed these sites to be unblocked during the holiday because students would not be using their computers for the purposes of completing assigned work during the school day.

“Part of the reason I restrict usage during school is so students will focus on their studies and engage in teacher lessons,” Roberson said. “During holidays that is not an issue. I trust our students and want them to enjoy their MacBook (Air laptops) during the holidays.”

Students were both thrilled and surprised by this announcement, as it meant that they could use sites normally blocked such as social media sites, game sites or shopping sites.

“I was so excited,” sophomore Ann Morgan Sullivan said. “We are never able to play games or shop or watch Netflix, so it kinda felt like the school was giving us a gift and rewarding us for our good behavior. I was pumped when I heard.”

Similarly, junior Virginia Parkinson was happy that sites that normally are blocked on the school computers were opened during the break. However, she notices that not all of the sites were unblocked.

“I was really excited to be able to go onto sites that I normally enjoy and spend time on, but are blocked, for some reason, on the school filter,” Parkinson said. “When I was on the sites, though, I saw that not everything was actually unblocked. This made me upset because the school put out an email promising something and did not deliver.”

According to Oxford School District Network Administrator Aaron Getz, computers will most likely be unblocked during during the two-week Christmas Break as well.