Year-Round School: Balanced Calendar

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,

A school’s normal calendar on the western United States is usually from early August to late May, and a school’s calendar on the eastern side of the United States is from early September to late June. But what if all schools started to switch to a all year-round calendar? A longer school calendar is not a good idea, because staff and students deserve a long summer vacation, there would be a problem with scheduling adjustments, and it would affect energy consumption for schools.

During summer, many students forget what they learned the year before, and teachers must review material done last year. People in year-round schools believe that because of the shorter breaks, teachers have to spend less time reviewing material, and can move forward in their teaching. According to the National Education Association, “one of the main reasons for switching to year-round schools is to improve with student academics.” Although there is no proof, many schools believe a year-round schedule helps improve students academic skills.

This is how the Year-Round School format would work. Students would attend school for a certain amount of days, and then the students would receive a longer break period. This would be repeated all year long. Primarily, the education administration is taking the summer break and splitting it equally throughout the year (nayre.org). The school districts that Year-Round School will help students, yet it may actually hurt them socially. For example, the long summer break provides students with the exciting opportunities such as camps and family vacations. These are learning opportunities that take place outside of the classroom by teaching young children valuable life skills including patience, teamwork, and tolerance (ltisdschools.org ). Also, teenagers may

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.

Most students enjoy summer vacation, but some educators feel that the summer break is too long and that students do not retain information as easily when they return in the fall. Some people argue that there should be year-round schools, where there would by a 3-4 week break in the summer, a long winter break, and a week off in the spring and fall. I disagree with those people. The biggest problem with this schedule would be the summer break, it just isn’t long enough. I believe year-round school is a bad idea because summer break is a time when students get to take a break, parents may not be able to find a caretaker during the shorter breaks, and schools may not have sufficient funds.

Have you ever thought about how year-round schooling can be beneficial to students? In today’s society, many school districts have been switching from a standard school year to year-round schooling. Year-round schools follow the basic 180 day school year, but the days are more spread out throughout the year following the 45-15 method. Forty five days of school, followed by fifteen day breaks. Year-round schooling is beneficial to many because it prevents students from gaining unwanted weight and causes less stress for teachers and students.

There is controversy over whether or not summer break makes kids forget what they should have previously learned. Coming from myself, a senior in high school, summer break is all about forgetting school and living it up during the duration of the break. This causes teachers to have to pretest students to see what all they actually did remember and then go over the same material trying to get them to remember. With year-round schooling you do not have to worry as much about the loss of learning. The longest break with year-round schooling is three weeks. Any break will causes some memory loss but the three month break that regular schooling provides makes the chances not remembering material increase greatly. Year-round schooling, allows the same

"They do not view YRE as a calendar configuration for space, achievement, or enrichment, but rather as a part of the transformation toward a philosophy of long continuous learning." (Guthrie). One of the main purposes of Year-Round Schooling is to lower the break time between school sessions. This causes children to have a better chance of retaining the knowledge that they learned from the previous year (Wyoming Tribune Eagle). Year-round schools consist of the same amount of school days, 180 days, the difference is that it is spread out over 12 months instead of the original 10. When the original school schedule was made, it was made for families who farmed in the summer. Modern day Americans do not have to focus on the economic issue

     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

Year round school eliminates regression of learning due to extended time off. Having a year round school can reduce what people known as summer learning loss ("The Pros"). Almost every child will experience a decrease in their math over the time of summer break each summer break ("SUMMER LEARNING"). “On an average students lose two months of reading skills over summer” ("SUMMER LEARNING"). After

Around 3,181 schools over our country have all year-round -schooling. Some people feel that year-round schooling is very beneficial for the kids. Others feel that a nine-month school year is a plenty and that children need the long summer break. There are certainly pros and cons to both ideas. Which one is really the best, though? I feel that the traditional school calendar is the best way to go.

To begin with, year round schools are still in session the same number of days (180) just like a traditional school. The 15 days off 15 days on calendar can help students focus and engage longer because they would learn a topic and then have a short break. In most traditional schools students not only tend to lose their knowledge over summer break, but also become bored easily. With that in mind, when children become bored they are most likely to hangout without their friends and possibly cause trouble. Being at school longer and having shorter breaks will keep children out of trouble and focus more on learning and academic activities.

In America most public schools go to school on a 10-month system established when America was mainly agriculture, and the children had to work in the fields during the summer. Year-round school was first used in the early 1900s to fight overcrowding and underfunding. It wasn’t until the 60s that year-round school was used again when a school in California became the first school to use it since 1904. I believe that the school schedule is fine the way it is. Some of the cons of year-round school are students can’t have summer jobs, most programs such as lunch and buses cost more, and extracurricular conflicts.

Even though kids in year round school learn more over the summer than the kids that are on the nine month school calendar , but the kids in the nine month school calendar learn more during school then the ones in year round school. The article says, "We found that students in year-round schools learn more during the summer, when others are on vacation, but they seem to learn less than other children during the rest of the year," said von Hippel. The problem, von Hippel said, may be that year-round schools don't actually add more school days to the school year. The total number of school days and vacation days are about the same for both systems - about 180." If kids in the nine month school calendar are learning more while they are at school then they might as well stick with not having year round