Year Round Education : The Time Has Come

In order to accommodate the year round calendar, there are several forms of year round education. The first form follows a single track calendar. This is the most popular type of calendar (Shields, 2000). A single track year is usually implemented to “provide a more balanced and enriched education program or to accommodate the special scheduling needs of a community” (Glines, 2002, 2699). A single track calendar takes on a 45/15 design. This is where students go to school for forty-five days in a row, and then have a fifteen day break. It is a continuous cycle. Schools usually begin in early August, and follow this pattern four times to complete the school year (Glines, 2002). The three week break in between is called an intersession. During this time, students can choose to take additional educational courses through “remedial,

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.

Summer break is supposed to be a time of rest and rejuvenation for students. After nine months of hard work and challenging classes, one would think such a long break could do nothing but good for students; however, this is not the best way for young minds to learn. A three month break is far too long for children to go without proper education and supervision. Instead of a long three month break at the end of each school year, why not give students the same number of days off but spread them out more frequently throughout the year? Year-round education is a more efficient, globally competitive, and fair alternative to the traditional nine month school year.

This shows that year-round school is at least as good as the traditional schedule in helping students learn. Year-round school also allows more time for remedial classes during the breaks, which can help students who are falling behind during the school year catch back up. This is in contrast with summer school, which only occurs after school is over and students are finished with the curriculum, making students have to start a totally new class just to catch up. Remedial classes reinforce material that is fresh in students’ minds instead of forcing them to recall something they may have learned half a year ago and probably forgotten. This once again cuts down on the time it takes to bring students up to speed with their classes.

Gone are the days of children getting off of school to help their family farms during the summer. Now, children as well as the teachers get out for some much needed relaxation. So why do we still follow the same schedule? It seems every school year the discussion of year-round education captures the attention of the general public. Is it time for year-round education (YRE) to be the new norm? Ultimately, there are not that many pros for year-round schooling to be the new thing and the traditional 180-day schedule should be kept.

In his article “Go Year-Round: A Push for True Summer School”, Milton Chen, the executive director of Edutopia, urges readers to use the year-round schooling system. He explains in brief words what the summer vacation was for. “…when farm families needed young people home during the summer months to replace the three R's with the two P's -- plantin' and pickin' " (Chen). He carries on discussing that the problem with the school days is not only the amount, but the schedule of the school day. The curriculum is too tight; neither the students nor the teachers have the time to step away from the books and text and learn from the outside. The students do not have the chance to go into the outside world and observe what is going on in the society that they live in. Additionally, the teachers do not have the chance to decide how their time is spent because it is spent on the strict schedule of the classroom.

“The U.S. research challenges one of the main arguments for abandoning conventional schedules: year- round schooling improves achievement because it prevents students from falling behind during the summer and because it does not waste precious time reviewing past years’ lessons”

Have you ever wondered what the difference between traditional schooling and year-round education is? Maybe you didn’t know that there are more than one type of year-round education. A year-round school schedule can benefit educators, students, and even families. Year-round schooling is where the breaks in school are on a balanced schedule. Instead of having a three month summer break, there would be 60 days off and then the students would be back to school. If on a multi track schedule, teachers could use their off time to substitute at their school on a different track or at another school to get paid more. For students, the shorter breaks away from school increase retention rates, therefore reducing the amount of review necessary at

Year-round schooling is characterized by its 45-90 day periods of instruction (varying with different multitrack systems) separated by 15-30 day breaks (varying with different multitrack systems) (California Department of Education). There is no current scientific evidence to show that year-round education lessens the amount of material forgotten during the summer (McMillen 68); in fact, this memory loss is maximized as it occurs more frequently as it accompanies the shorter, habitual breaks. Constant breaks can also multiply some of summer’s negative effects. One common issue associated with summer is students’ loss of focus as summer approaches and trouble becoming accustomed to the beginning of the following school year (Worsnop 439). This would be a, though minimized, a recurring difficulty with constant breaks. Furthermore, teachers

Year-round schooling is the same number of days as a normal day at school, just split up with short breaks. They would go for 60 days and then get a 20-day break. More popular plans include 45-15 and 80-40. Some Pros for Year-round schooling: kids can suffer from the long summer break, year-round schools can replace summer school, teachers normally spend weeks reviewing things from the year before, but year-round schooling can prevent that. The cons to year-round schooling: There are higher demands on staff, cafeteria, and maintenance workers, it’s is harder to plan graduations and parent conferences, working parents can have a hard time finding transportation, and parents with kids in other schools can have a hard time planning vacations. More than 2 million kids came to year-round schools in

The third reason is many year-round schools have an intersession with creative classes. According to “Year-Round Schooling Offers Benefits over a Traditional Calendar,” the scheduled breaks or vacations for students are called intersessions. Nevertheless “Intersession also is a fertile period for enrichment and creativity” (Year-Round Schooling Offers Benefits). Year-Round schools can have 1-3 week classes for a number of different subjects (Year-Round Schooling Offers Benefits). Also, as a student, intersession is a great way to catch up for a student falling behind in classes. Likewise, if a student is struggling with a certain subject they can take a class during their intersession, then when classes restart they could be caught up. In addition, high school students may use the fall and winter intersessions to scope out future colleges. Students who participate in sports can use the intersession as a way to catch up on their studies if they are not at the level they are expected to be at (Year-Round Schooling Offers Benefits).

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.

Imagine going to school on the first couple of weeks back from summer break. After the introductory period ends and the learning phase starts up again, children sit there staring blankly at the board. They can forget a lot of things after two and a half months of being a couch-potato. In year-round school, kids have shorter breaks, which means teachers spend less time reviewing work from last year and more time moving forward academically. Most teachers and educators “keep the learning process ongoing with minimal disruption,” (scholastic.com 1). Although it isn't proven that year-round school children do better academically, they do have a

Year round schools also get the same amount of days as traditional schools. Year Round Schools get more breaks than normal schools like when each marking period ends, we give them a two to four week break. Year Round Schools have more breaks than normal schools so that kids won't be so stressed because if your kid has stress it won't be able to work on their math, social studies, science, and language

The opportunity to catch up and stay on track throughout the school year is a major benefit of year-round education. Tracy Huebner wrote about this opportunity in her article, “What Research Says About Year Round Schooling.” Huebner makes a living researching different education practices and is therefore very knowledgeable about year round schooling. She is able to clarify that unlike the conventional schooling system, which provides summer school as the opportunity for students to catch up or relearn materials, year-round offers these sessions during all of the mid-year breaks. They refer to them as remediation and enrichment programs. While summer school is a good opportunity, students are forced to go through the entire course confused and behind until summer, after they are done with the course. By this time any student who was having extreme trouble may need to retake the course merely because they did not have time to get clarification. Mid-year sessions allow the