There is no space to condense the season- it is already on top of Basketball FE, with 4 days practice before the first soccer games. If the dates of the AP exams could somehow be changed to the alternate date one week later, you might could squeeze it in. Another option is to start the DoDDS school year 2 weeks earlier; more in line with most US schools.That would give more time to prepare for AP tests, also. However, its not right to ask students to choose between the AP class and a sport - most of the 11th and 12th soccer players in our school are taking AP classes. It was bad enough dealing with JROTC and Band Far East conflicts. The dead time is for all teams now,not just Korea, so its fair... it also gives injured players a chance to recover.
Korea has had a 3 week dead period for years...Our last game was on Apr.25th. Japan teams are still playing this week.

I heard about this and think it's a horrible decision. I used to coach in the spring, and kids who had AP tests would get to leave practice early, skip practice if need be, and sometimes not go to games or show up late. It's absolutely insane to make a 2 week "Dead Zone" for this. It hasn't been a problme in the past, so why now? Why punish all kids for tests that a few are taking?

If students are not fairing well on AP exams, let's examine the issues to find out why. I have seen many parents force their kids into AP classes in order to get into a "Good College." These are great kids, but NOT AP caliber and they struggle all year. To then blame sports is a convenient scapegoat. The worst part is that International Schools will be laughing all the way to Far East Championships!

We have IB at our school, but we get around the "dead period" by having APAC earlier in the season and still manage to get our proscribed 17 KAIAC + 6 APAC matches /season. But all of this is at the cost of the coaching that should take place. At most, we get only 2 training sessions per 3 matches a week. Something is wrong if we play more matches than the number of practice days.
The US Soccer Federation published a study a few years back citing the reasons why the US is far behind youth soccer developement in so-called "soccer nations". Two of the reasons they cited, when studying European and S. American systems, were: 1) disproportionate training/match ratio, and 2) tournaments with more than one match/day.
In my opinion, we need to shorten the number of required matches, lengthen the number of training possibilities, and re-evaluate our tournaments where we cram 6-8 matches in 3-4 days. How many times do the two best teams make it to the final? Many times, it is the team that is the best conditioned or luckiest in injuries.
I know this will never happen, but if it did, it would allow for more flexibility in these "dead periods" and let kids be students when they need to be and still get in the learning on the pitch/track/court in case they want to go onto the next level.

especially for small schools when the realities of the schedule is too tight for more training times, when most of the players are in multiple sports, etc. The 'dead time' is really not completely dead, but just on life support - it has time still to put in two or three 'friendly' games with local host nation schools if wanted, and does not disallow practice. So the balance for the student-athlete is still there. I dont think the stop for AP testing affects the team's or the individuals playing abilities significantly. I've only coached 6 years for HS teams, and usually all of our seniors and most of our juniors were taking AP courses - and the break didnt hurt them on the pitch. Our championship team were almost all on the honor roll , with the graduating valedictorian (FE MVP :-)) and salututorian. Last year's runner up team the same. When the students love the sport they play - they will want more practice but know when to prioritize the time to study - individual responsibility.
Having said all of that -- I think most of the student-athletes at this level would prefer more matches than training - but we do practice 3-4 x a week with a 2 game weekend during the season, so the ratio is ok. And , even though i hate to admit it sometimes, the two best teams always make it to the finals.