A Year Round School Research Paper

The possibility of year round schools has been a hot debate topic for quite some time. The question is, is the idea of year round schools acceptable considering all the potential drawbacks? Year round schooling can be disruptive to both the family of the students and the teachers themselves, it can be too costly for a large group of people, and year round schools do not provide the same opportunity for learning as the traditional school year does. For several reasons, the traditional school year, which runs for ten months instead of eleven, is more beneficial in comparison to year round schooling.

Year-round schooling, also known as YRS, is a new idea that schools are trying to implement across the United States and worldwide. “As of June 2006, and estimated 2.3 million students in over 3,100 schools across the United States attended classes on a year-round school schedule.” (Chittom and Klassen). Schools that aren’t on a year-round schedule are based off of a 180- day calendar that includes a summer and fall break. With the YRS schedule the classes would run for 3 weeks then take a 2-3 week break in between. Schools should switch to year-round school because there is less setbacks and it is beneficial to the people involved.

Does year round school truly have a positive impact in the lives of students? Various studies do suggest that year round school is helpful. There are some disadvantages to this type of schooling that are preventing all schools from switching to this type of scheduling. In earlier times schools were only teaching throughout half of the year so that school would be out of session when it was time to work in the fields. This type of scheduling is still common today even though only a small portion of agriculture is tied into education and kids are no longer required to work. “In 1994, the National Education Commission on Time and Learning (1994) urged school districts to develop school calendars that acknowledged (a) differences in student learning and (b) the major changes taking place in American society. The report reflected growing concern about how the school calendar relates to students at risk for academic failure” (Cooper, Nye, Charlton, James, & Greathouse). As a result. many are fighting for year-round school. Year-round school has proven to be beneficial in the lives of students and has lead to greater success in the classroom. Although, there are some downfalls to year-round schooling.

The third reason why we shouldn’t have all year round –schools is because, its tradition to have 180 day’s strait with 3 months of breaks and it gives us more important things to do in the summer. According to Julia Sines, to have a 3-month summer and do more fun activities to do all summer is better than going to school year round. Kids want to go on vacations with their parents. Some athletic kids won’t be able to play travel sports. Scientist say that year round school kids drop out by their senior year (Sines). Most juniors and seniors work in the summer for money for colleges and to save up, but they won’t be able to get money. It’s more American to have 180 straight days with 3-month break. Billee Bussard stated, “It is an idea that has been tried and failed for more than 100 years,” (Sines). So talking to that quote, why would we start now. Kids love going outside and swimming and playing games and making money, but because the kids go to year round schools they only have 3 weeks to do these fun

This is one reason that we should not have year round school in the United States. Year round schools don't learn any more than the kids in traditional nine month school calendar. The article says,"Students in "year-round" schools don't learn more than their peers in traditional nine-month schools, new research has found." This shows that kids in year round school don't learn any more then kids in the nine month school calendar. If kids don't learn any more than their peers than they shouldn't have to go to year round school. Kids in school deserve to have a summer vacation to hang out with friends and family and to be able to travel.

Holton public schools should not do a year round schedule because the amount of homework you could get. And you will not be allowed to have your break from school, It would be almost like having to do summer school because of the amount of homework you get, And the schedule of appointments,games, and all of your vacations will be messed up by having to switch to a year round school. It would be hard to make time to do other things with your friends and your family because you have to do your homework so you will not get a bad grade on your homework or get in trouble.

Many people, including President Barack Obama believe that year round schooling is the best option for American students, because the year round system gives students equal amount of time in school, while increasing the efficiency of a single school building (Ave 1B). “More than two million students in some three thousand U.S. schools attend year round programs in 41 states” (Lawson 48). This astonishing number seems large, but really is only 2% of students in the United States. Many of the perceived advantages of year round schooling revolve around cost and learning efficiency, but in reality the traditional system gives essentially equal

Year-round school maintains that students forget knowledge and skills they learned during the previous school year. There are studies that support this theory. Students show loss of knowledge in math and language arts knowledge over the long summer break. Students must re-acclimate themselves to the school schedule, their new teachers and their classmates, as well as to school rules and expectations, homework, and non-academic demands such as participation in sports. From teachers experience the first month of each new school year is spent figuring out what the student has remembered from the previous year and reviewing what they have forgotten over the summer

The number of year-round schools in the United States, at the moment, is 3,181. Additionally, only a mere 10% of public school children are enrolled in year-round school. The idea of a year-round school is a really neglected one. Most schools have adopted the ‘Traditional’ idea of a school year that has a summer break. However, a year round school has periodic, shortened breaks, which helps the students, and the teachers alike. Having year-round school is a revolutionary idea, and it should be adopted into the Public School System, nationally.

Year- round school is growing in popularity around the United States. School years that are considered Year-round do not take the traditional three-month summer break, but instead take multiple breaks throughout the year that vary in length. Year-round school is necessary to today’s education system because it helps prevent summer learning loss for students, teachers do not have to waste time re-teaching old material and lower income families benefit greatly from the adjusted schedule.

Surprisingly, money plays a big role in year-round schooling. The article “Year-Round School Pros and Cons” states, “For schools with facility shortages, a multi-track year-round calendar increases school capacity.” This means that to maximize facility usage the school assigns different students different breaks at different times. Therefore, at all times there is always at least one group of students and teachers on break. This allows for the school to run on the same budget that traditional schools

Though it is a fact that year round schooling requires more money than the traditional ten-month system, keeping students in a school atmosphere year-round is proven to be more successful. The year-round schooling has slowly been introducing itself into the United States recently, though it will take a tremendous tremendous tremendous tremendous tremendous tremendous change this system the cons seem to not be in the students

There has been kind of a war going on in the United States. Some people think that kids should go to school all year around, some people don’t. Now people that want year round school have some good points, like the kids will get more schooling possibly get smarter. Maybe there will be less kids that don’t go to college and they get good jobs so the poverty rate will go down. People who don’t want year round school are probably mostly kids, kids don’t want to go to school in the summer, that probably doesn’t please most kids. There are also teachers that feel like that would be a tragedy if kids had to go to school all year round, because that will mess

Students also would not be able to work summer jobs. Having year-round school also means accommodating utilities in buildings such as air conditioning and other expenses. Another source claimed that “Some critics, however, note that extracurricular activities, like sports and band, may be more difficult under the year-round schedule. Unless the entire district converts to the same calendar, parents with kids in different grade levels can find it troublesome to plan vacations. And although one of the main reasons for switching to year-round schools is to improve retention rates, there is no concrete proof that students improve academically.

The most important advantage of year-round school is that it helps students retain knowledge. Learning lost during the summer is a big problem. Proponents of year-round school assert that having shorter breaks would reduce learning loss because the students couldn’t forget as much over a shorter period of time. Detractors often say that there have been no reputable studies supporting this. It is true that many studies had somewhat faulty methodologies, failing to account for other variables that could have affected performance, like