Essay on Year Round Schooling Gets an F-

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.

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,

I think it's funny that the subject of year-round school is still a topic of debate. The reason is I just want to have good teachers and get a good education. I really don't care when and how the schedule is set up because I know my mom and dad will support me and get me to where and when I need to be. But, if I had a choice I would choose to have a schedule similar to what Nick Castellino writes about in his letter. I feel that of the two letters Nick wrote the one I agreed with more. Nick's letter, seemed to me, to be mainly about doing away with year-round school.

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.

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.

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.

Year-round schooling is a good idea because it cuts down on the set backs of long breaks. The summer break that everyone knows and loves used to have a different purpose then just swimming in the sun. In the 19th century the children going to school also worked on family farm, so they used this summer “vacation” to help get ready for the winter months. (McFadden and McMahon) Now that there is less farming families schools do not have to worry about that. By the end of the year, YRS

Year round schooling should be a thing. The time we leave school and go back to school is crazy now we get about a month off and when we leave we forget everything we have learned the past year. Its preposterous and repetitive, why forget everything we learned and struggle to relearn it when we could just stay in school. Most kids are against it because they don't want to lose their summer vacation but when it comes down to it, you'd get more time off and more breaks if you had year round schooling anyway.

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

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

The topic of year around school has been brought up many times throughout my time in school. Though it has been brought up, it has not actually been considered by my fellow students and I. We have all taken surveys regarding it and most of the people I know have been against it. With our school being in a small town in Iowa I do not think having year round schooling would benefit us or the community.

     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 many schools attend year round school? In my opinion I think that we shouldn’t have year round school. For instance, if you have a long distance family member, and you ant to visit them, how would you be able to do that? Also how are you going to go on vacation and spend more than a weekend there? You wouldn’t unless your parents were off and they took you out of school.

The first reason we should have year round school is because of students memories. This could help teachers spend less time reviewing what we already learned. According to Oxford Learning® students are at risk of summer learning loss. This could be prevented with year round

The whole reason students attend school is to gain the knowledge that is necessary to live life in the future. Throughout the years of progression, students are able to inherit a tremendous amount of information that will be useful in their life later on whether it’d be in college, their job etc. Year-round schooling can boost that knowledge even more! Looking at the ABCNews video, Margaret Trimer Hartley, a superintendent at Detroit’s university Press Science and Math, she states that with the year-round schooling, the biggest benefit is that they deliver results. When students go out on summer break it is very common for them to lose what they learned about the year before so the teachers have to review it with them for the first month of school. Yet, with the year-round schooling, students wouldn’t be keen to losing the memory. This would later give teachers more time to teach the students newer lessons, which will build up their knowledge. Heartly states that, “Test scores for kids raised 25% in California with year-round schooling” (ABCNews). This statistics shows that there are results and they are positive. With test scores being raised, teachers are noticing that students are able to learn more things and later remember it so when they take a test, the results would increase. This would later be beneficial to students because they can later compete against other countries