Year-Round School Is What's Needed Not Camp

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.

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.

A large portion of the knowledge gained during the last school year is lost over the long idle months and must be retaught for weeks, which wastes a lot of time that could be spent learning new material. This puts students behind in that year’s curriculum, and over many summers, can add up to students being months or years behind where they would be if no learning was lost. There is a solution to this

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.

Some advantages of year-round schooling include improved achievement, improved attendance by both teachers and students, reduced discipline problems, lower teacher stress, increased motivation due to frequent breaks, and increased opportunities for enrichment (Palmer and Bemis). During the two week breaks in between school sessions, students have the opportunity to take classes on karate, ballet, photography, cooking, and swimming. This intersession provides time for hands-on, big project classes that get kids involved in topics that interest them. Intersession can also be used as an intervention for students who are falling behind. “Karl Alexander, sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University, studied 800 students for more than 20 years in Baltimore’s elementary schools. He found that by ninth grade, low-income students had fallen 3 ½ grade levels behind their middle-class peers. And most of that gap was attributable to learning lost over the long traditional summer” (Schulte, 2009). The biggest driving force and proponent of year-round schooling is the effect of the “summer slide.” Students lose two months of achievement in math skills and students from low-income families lose more than two months in reading achievement according to the national Summer Learning

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”

The first reason why kids should have a summer break is that it makes school less complicated. According to Jennifer Brozak, a disadvantage of having a year round school is that the school budget has to increase. They will need to have more fundraisers in order to keep the school going. If they neglect to get the amount of money they need they sometimes cancel and let the students have a summer break. In addition, teachers are having difficulty with planning lessons for students and grading papers in a short amount of time they have (Brozak). In addition, Brozak says, because of the short amount of time teachers have to grade papers they are prone to burnout. This is one of the reasons that schools should have a summer break because both teachers and students’ mental pressure because of work (Brozak). As a student, I can say that breaks will be necessary to recharge and prepare myself

The average school period is one hundred and eighty days with small breaks in between and a three-month break during summer to ease students’ minds and let them relax. The Board of Education should make all schools in the United States year-round to increase educational time and decrease the loss of knowledge over the breaks. It gives students the same time to relax and plan family vacations periodically throughout the year, but never creates the stress of changing sleep schedules that summer break changes. Not only is it a good way to enhance education, but it also is better for planning family events, positive effects on budget, academic achievement, and could decrease the absence rate of students.

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

According to the National Association for Year-Round Education, students will be able to advance more rapidly if they did year-round schooling. A by-product of summer break is the dividing of classes based on age. If schooling was year-round, there would be less distinction between one year and the next. This only teaches us to work with people from our generation. If we had year-round schooling we could advance quicker and work with people from different generations, just like how it would be in the future with jobs. Also, the constant learning environment takes away the emphasis of when the student started school and instead emphasizes skill

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

Do students get bored towards the end of summer? Do students forget what they learned from the school year before? Sarah attends a high school in Indiana, while Hannah goes to a high school in Illinois. Due to the year round schooling (YRS) in Indiana, Sarah has a shortened summer. Sarah receives two-three weeks off of school for winter break, fall break, and spring break. Once Sarah gets back from her breaks, her teacher has one day of review and moves on. Hannah does not have to go to school during the summer but only receives a week or two off here and there. When Hannah returns to start school after summer ends, her teacher takes two weeks to review what they learned the year before. The breaks for Sarah last a lot longer than they do for Hannah. The extensive summer break disconnected Hannah from school and she forgot everything. Year round schooling would benefit students because it would reduce negativity toward school and stress.

Many schools are considering changing to a year-round school schedule. The schedule would have students attend school year-round with several three-week breaks rather than the traditional school calendar, which begins in the fall and ends in the spring. There are many benefits in year-round schooling over the traditional school calendar, students don’t have the long 3 month summer break where they lose a lot of what they have learned, and it helps the troubled students with attending and excelling in school. It is believed that over the long 3 month summer break students forget a lot of what they have learned in the past school year.