Benefits Of Year-Round Schools

Year-round schools have gained popularity among the United States, being a very communicated topic within middle class communities. These schools are generally argued about by whether they are beneficial or not. While there are many advantages to year-round schools, there are some disadvantages as well. A few of these disadvantages include the expenses of the schools, the schedules the schools provide, the involvement within the schools, and the actual effectiveness of these schools.

Many teachers take graduate classes during the summer vacation period to catch up with new curriculums and advances in technology. Teachers will find attending professional conferences, staff development activities, and college courses more difficult. A teacher who was part of a year round system recounts, "I found myself going through 3 school years without that opportunity for self-assessment and planning for the future of the educational program." ("The Effect of Year Round Schools" 1999/22 February 2005). With a much shorter summer break, teachers will not have enough time to increase their education, which can benefit the learning of their students. For these reasons, year round schools are not as beneficial as the traditional school year.

Year round schooling is better than regular school because, it allows the kids to retain more information and not lose what they learned, they also allow them to graduate earlier with higher retention levels. In discussion of Year Round Schooling, one controversial issue has been whether year round schooling is a good idea or not. People believe that year round schooling is a good thing and that it will increase academic achievement levels and benefit the students more than anything else. Students will also be able to advance more quickly since the schooling is year round, they have less to forget since the breaks are shorter. On the other hand people seem to believe that year round schooling takes away from the students and gives them less family time and less of an “Outside of school life” (NEA). In the research of year round schooling it shows that absences are most likely to be higher since it is year round. Their view is that we think that many students can benefit from year round schooling, and that is has more benefits than anything else.

Imagine a school year that never ends. A year without summer, relaxation, and vacations with family. Summer is the time of year that every student cannot wait arrive. But what if the playful time filled with friends, smiles, and laughter did not exist? What if school remained in session year-round? This is happening in 3,181 schools across America and is gradually increasing (edweek.org). The government calls it: Year-Round School. There are both many pros and cons to this controversial issue in today’s education; however, Year-Round School is not a good decision because of the social outcomes, the financial costs, and the academic effects that Year-Round School burdens on the students.

Families used to have a father as a primary care person. He would go off to work as the mother would stay home cook, clean, and take care of the kids during the summer of after school. Now after the Women’s movement more women have jobs and cannot always be home for the kids. (McFadden and McMahon) This causes a problem during the 180- schedule break because the kids would have to go to day care or the parent (s) would have to hire a babysitter. There are financial benefits YRS as well. Some year-round school operate on a “multi-track” system. This “multi-track” system is where only a few groups of students occupy the building at a time. This could be beneficial because there is less time where the building is unoccupied and therefore less

If there is year round schooling, there is a higher potential level and students would benefit from having year-round schooling. There are year round schooling which would cause a lot less distractions through the school year. “Suppose in the year round school program, there’s a break every six or eight weeks; that means as soon as students begin to feel settled, they’re off again. If shortened breaks come too frequently, as they’d almost have to in the new system, it becomes harder for students to ever get

In the article, “How Much Does Stress Affect Learning by , it says , “Stress…negatively affects the way children pay attention in class, stay on task, and are able to move from one activity to another.” This stress that students deal with is not a good thing and it can also cause teachers to become stressed. The short breaks that come with a year-round school year allows students to get rid of this stress, and relax. In the article, “Year-round schooling:An overview” it states, “teachers and students experience less stress and burnout during year-round schedule because of the multiple short breaks available throughout the year.” This reveals the fact that year-round schooling can decrease the level of stress a teacher or student has opposed to the basic school year. The short breaks that come with a year-round school year allows students to get rid of this stress, and relax. It also gets rid of the mental problems that come with the stress.

In the article,” The Pros and Cons of Year-Round School” it states that by taking summer away that this could help the students have more time to understand the material. In addition, they say that by taking summer away it helps students not to forget anything that they learn the year prior. This shows that students could excel more in school if summer breaks were gone. Also in the article, “The Pros and Cons of Year-Round School” states that the summer break given to the students is too long. The students have almost nothing to do. Some do go on vacations, but not a lot do. This shows that this would be the prime opportunity to get rid of summer, and do a year round school. Sure people believe that this should happen, but is that really the right way to go

Single-track schools, which can make up as much as 87% of year-round schools in areas such as North Carolina, “cost as much or more than traditional school programs” (McMillen 68). The expenses that contribute to this are costs such as the salaries for auxiliary educators to replace those who have chosen to go on break (California Department of Education). While teachers are on break, other educators will most likely be using the classroom, leaving teachers struggling to find ways to store larger educational tools such as posters, student work from previous years, etc. and end up looking to the school to provide storage accommodations. In conjunction with these regular payments, there would also be lengthier maintenance work, which would be very challenging to carry out when there are constantly students in session (California Department of Education). Additional expenses could also include temperature control and food costs, which would be greater due to full year usage. The monetary effects of year round school could also be significant on a moderately broader scale. “In 2000, Texas found the economic costs of starting school in early August totaled US$370 million in lost summer employment, lowered tourism spending, and additional air conditioning costs.” (“Leave Those Kids” 5). Loss of tourism and summer employment

     Furthermore, switching over to year round schooling can prove to be more costly than the normal school year. First off, the budget for a year round program, when compared to a traditional program, is much larger. There are more materials, such as school supplies, to be bought, a larger cost for air conditioning, and the increased expenses when a facility is used year round. One of the main concerns is that the life of a school becomes considerably shorter. Usually, in the summer time schools are under repair and made ready for the next year. However, with a shorter summer break, there is not enough time to renovate schools. This will lead to the need of newer facilities more often. Moreover, the largest expense is in hiring new teachers. Not many educators sign up for the year round schooling program and those who do, expect larger salaries than regular teachers do. “The biggest budget increase in a year-long program is most often due to

Did you know that all year round schools are the same length as regular schools? As of now are school day length is roughly 180 days, the all year round schools are roughly 180 days long. The only reason why people think that you go to school longer in a year round school is because you only get a month off in the summer, the rest of the time is spread out between our Easter and Christmas holidays. Pros of year round schooling would include longer breaks on holidays, for example, instead of getting two weeks off during the Christmas holidays we might get three weeks off for Christmas holidays. Another pro of year round schooling would be would be, the school would not be empty for two months at a time, when the school is empty for two months at a time the owner starts to lose money because they are still paying for water and power bills even though nothing is being used. A con of all year round schooling would be you don’t graduate from school earlier than all of the other schools, just because you only get one month off in the summer doesn't mean that you still learn for an extra month. Year round schooling holidays are just separated more compared to just having two months off during summer and a week or two off during holidays. The final pro of having year round schooling would be not having the school closed for two month at a time. One of the worst things about year round schooling is summer holidays, the person who pays the bills for year round schooling is not getting

One disadvantage of attending a year-round school is that it complicates family life. This is due to the fact that in a family where “one child is at a year-round school and his or her sibling is at a traditional school, they may have separate days off of school. Then the parents may have to get one kid ready for school and prepare activities for the other child, who is at home. This also makes it very difficult to plan family vacations.”

possible con to a year-round school calendar is the lack of time for recreational summer activities

Also, “without public support, year-round will fail because the parent’s reluctance to send their children” (Gee, 795). Parent reluctance comes from the lack of synchronized time off for vacation. Work schedules do not typically run on a 45/15 plan and without three months break, families lose time for a vacation. If a school decides to go year-round, communication between the community and school would have must be very clear as to when students are supposed to be in school (Wildman et al. 465).

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