Year-round Schooling: A Simple Solution For Today’s Students

Industries such as business and medicine depend on extreme methods and forward thinking ideas. To be a successful enterprise, one must be willing to take risks and try new things. Within the last century, education has attempted to take a leap of faith by completely flipping the traditional school schedule and idea of summer vacation upside down. Just as with any idea, there are advantages and disadvantages as well as supporters and opponents. Each district must look at their own individual needs and evaluate the trials from schools that have gone before them to decide if year-round schooling would benefit their school.

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.

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

Having a three month summer gives kids a break to spend time with their family, friends, and time to do what they want. I went on an Alaskan Cruise in 2012 for a month of my summer. It was a very interesting experience. Kids that go to a year-round school can’t have this great experience to go and travel around to some places. According to “Year-Round Schooling Explained” by Education

Students should attend school year round because, it increases the amount of material they learn, provides more vacations in between the year, and helps them retain knowledge they learned instead of forgetting it over a two month period. Students go to school for ten months, and get a two month vacation. This two month vacation may feel nice while you are in it, but many students think there are not enough breaks during the school year. Some schools only celebrate three holidays, which are Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Holidays such as Labor Day and President’s Day are claimed by schoolboards to be “an unimportant holiday”.

Besides, studies have shown that kids lose knowledge that they just learned from the previous year during the summer. For example, on paragraph 7, in the article “Vacation Just as Important as School” it said that, “The gist is that in summer kids forget whatever they just have learned.” Proving that kids need year round schooling so the information they learned can stay with them for the following years. Also, in the article “A Lesson in the Value of Summer”, paragraph 19, they said that, “Increasing summer school may be a good educational policy for raising standardized test scores.” Making a point that having education year round will make sure you grades stay up.

Year-Round School Year-round school is having school all year round instead of having a summer break. If we had year-round school, people wouldn’t lose what they learned over summer break. The teachers wouldn’t have to re-teach the things they did before. Then the students could graduate faster if we didn’t have summer vacation (Morin). Some bad parts about year-round school is some parents are not going to leave their child home alone if they go on vacation during the summer, so the child could miss school.

“Though it may seem fun, a summer break can often lead to boredom,” The Pros and Cons of year round school stated. If we shorten our breaks, then we would be less bored all

Studies have shown that at least 85% students cannot retain enough information as it is, so adding a long summer break like that would just worsen it. Knowing that they would be going all year-round would benefit them to stay in constant motion of absorbing information. It’s all for the benefit of the students so they don’t

Students spend much of their time in scheduled or required activities such as school, before and after school programs, hours spent doing homework, etc. that their calendars may already allow little time for other interests or just unwinding (Worsnop 443). The long, traditional summer breaks away from daily schedules and demanding workloads may be these students’ only time to really pursue other interests and opportunities (Worsnop 438), especially activities that may take more time and dedication. A common and often efficient way to explore these interests is through the wide variety of summer camps offered during the traditional break (“Leave Those Kids” 5). These activities could help students learn new skills that are more specific to their field of interest or can be applied to any aspect of life (Worsnop 443). Offering educational and interesting opportunities such as these camps can help students realize that “not all learning happens in the classroom” and inspire them to seek out other ways to explore their interests (“Leave Those Kids” 5). However, these enrichment and educational possibilities are not always available to everyone, potentially putting certain students at a disadvantage. To counter act the financial disparity possibly causing this obstacle, actions should be taken to aid these students specifically oppose to changing an entire school’s schedule (“Leave Those Kids” 5). Moreover, for the number of schools unable to offer additional courses during breaks, students would not be able to take required classes outside of the school day in order to replace them with enrichment courses which can provide a source of self-expression and relieve stress (Mazzochi 121) as well as a way to expose or fill students with passion for something new. Many advocates of year-round systems highlight the fact that both systems, traditional and year-round, provide the same

The traditional school calendar used by most schools in the United States stems from the original agrarian calendar as students were often called to tend to crops in the summer. This was thoughtfully and effectively designed for the time period it was created in; however, schools, research, and society have dramatically changed since then. The agrarian calendar no longer makes sense, as we consider overcrowding in schools and the significant research regarding the “summer brain drain.” There are several models of year-round schooling that would better serve all stakeholders in most communities across the nation.

“A long summer vacation in which students forget much of what they have learned is far from ideal for learning” (Shields et al.). Many educators are beginning to realize the benefits of year-round schooling. Even though year-round education is not traditional, year-round schooling should be implemented because year-round education increases academic achievement, frequent breaks allow students and teachers to recharge, and track plans relieve overcrowding. Year-round students still retain school holidays, but these holidays are distributed throughout the year. These breaks created are called intersessions. Year-round education comes in many

Some year-round school advocates suggest that a shift in the time designated for teaching and learning will help students achieve more by minimalizing summer learning loss, allowing for innovation and implementation of creative programs, and by providing the time needed to assist children who need extra help (Lynch). By having breaks that are more consistent, some say that shorter vacations might also help students retain information they would’ve forgot over a two-month break. Basically, shortening breaks will improve student achievement. Another pro would be how year-round schooling could replace summer school, which many districts have cancelled due to budget cuts. For students that traditionally attend summer school because they need remediation, year-round school allows remediation to be addressed throughout the

Year-long schools are defined as when a school participates in 180 days, but instead of a summer break, their breaks are spread throughout the year. There are different types of year-long curriculum, but the most popular calendar is the 45-15 day plan which is also referred to as a balanced calendar. The 45-15 plan, consisting of 45 days (or 9 weeks) of learning and then a 15 day (3 week) break. Since the original reason of a long break at the end of the year no longer makes sense in this decreased agricultural world, many people are advocating a shift away from this ‘antiquated’ 9-month school year in favor of year-round education.

Traditional public schools are located all around the United States. Public schools start at the end of August or early September and end their school year late May or early June. They then have a three-month long break for the summer months. According to the “Year-Round Education Program Guide,” published by the California Department of Education, using the traditional 180-day calendar and having the three-month long summer break will cause students to lose the knowledge gained throughout the year; however, Robin Lockett Carter argues in the article, “The Traditional School Calendar Can Continue to Work in the Future,” that no matter what the school schedule is, the retention of information for a child will be the same. Carter believes that “changing the school calendar to eliminate summer ‘learning loss’ will not solve the problem of students not learning to remember” (Carter). A student’s performance, according to Carter, relies on many factors including the quality of the teacher, support of parents, and who the students are as individuals. The California Department of