Year-round school

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This sign for Morrisville Elementary School in North Carolina includes flashing lights to alert drivers that students may be on the roadways even during summer months.

Year-round schools educational institutions are based on a schedule that has school throughout most of the calendar year, as opposed to having no school in summer. A motivation is that higher student throughput is accomplished via more effective scheduling of school resources. Year round schedules deliver the same number of total days of classroom education and vacation as traditional calendars, distributed differently throughout the year. Funding considerations favor multi-tracking students, which allows more students to use the same number of classrooms, instead of constructing entirely new schools. In addition to these systems, students enrolled in year-round classes often claim that their calendar schedule is more balanced. Advocates claim that year-round calendars help students achieve higher and allow teachers to provide more effective education. Reports from the California State Department Of Education show that standardized test scores increased an average of 9.5% in Grade 3 with an average increase of 13.3% in reading scores^[1]. Conversely, opponents insist that year-round education is detrimental to student learning. Some school board officials and studies indicate negative impacts of schedule changes and year-round education. Lawsuits have even been filed^[2] against various school districts, citing year-round schools as being "harmful to students."

1 Description
2 Advantages
3 Criticisms
4 References

[edit] Description

Organization. of the school calendar redistributes time from the traditional summer vacation to other times throughout the year in the form of breaks called intersessions. Two forms of year-round education are common:

Single-Track calendars: As with traditional calendars (all single track calendars are modified traditional calendars), all students attend school during the same intervals, and share the same scheduled breaks. Single-track year-round calendars are known by many names; Balanced Calendar, Modified Traditional, Alternative Calendar. All year-round calendars are identified by their characteristics, not by what name has been chosen by the school district. These characteristics are shortened summer vacation, Fall breaks, extended Winter and/or Easter breaks, and early school start dates. Typical school start dates are in late July/early August, with some schools starting in mid- November as well.^[3]

Multi-track scheme: Students are assigned different schedules called tracks. These tracks are also split up throughout the year, but a single student is not required to attend every single track in order to complete one full year of education. At most times during the year, students in the same school will be on vacation while others are schooling. Typical school start dates are in July. There are two different types of calendars:
- A Concept 6 calendar splits up the academic calendar into six eight-week blocks. Students attend school for four months, then take two months of vacation, or attend school for two months and go on vacation for two months. This allows a school to gain 50% more capacity, but requires the school year to be shortened from the traditional 180 days to 163 days, which is made up by longer classes. A modified version splits the school year up into twelve four week blocks, with students attending school for two months and going on vacation for one month. ^[4]
- A traditional multitrack calendar permits the school to attain the normal 180 days of education in a school year. A four track plan allows a school to gain up to 33% more capacity by having one track of students away while the other three tracks are in class. Common schedules are 45/15, 60/20, and 90/30, while the first number denotes the number of instructional days and the second the number of vacation days. A five track plan allows up to 25% more capacity, while reducing the number of teachers that have to roam between classrooms. A common schedule is 60/15. This also allows for a longer common vacation. ^[5] The Orchard Plan is a plan which has teachers teaching 225 school day years, with a group of students going on vacation periodically.^[6] Generally, common breaks are scheduled for the period between Winter and New Year's Day and for Easter break.

Whether on a single- or multi-track schedule, students attend school for a prescribed length of time and then have a vacation. These breaks, whether vacation time or instruction time, are known as intersessions. Common schedules are 7 to 12 weeks of school, followed by a 1-3 week break. Summer vacations are shortened to as little as 4 weeks in order to support the added breaks throughout the year.^[5]

[edit] Advantages

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Front view of a year-round school in Morrisville. Here is this school's Academic Calendar for 2006-2007. Morrisville has been a year-round school since its construction; it is part of a program that has been running for more than 16 years to implement year-round schools.

Proponents of year-round school cite:

Financial
- Multi-tracking allows more cost-effective use of school resources by distributing them more efficiently in time
- Alleviate need for new school construction
- Flexible staffing patterns and alternative salary and benefit programs
Educational
- 25% increase in 8th grade reading scores
- Reduce class sizes and less overcrowding in classrooms
- Fewer students per resource at any given time (classroom space, computer labs, libraries, media resources) and staff resources (education specialists such as physical education, foreign languages, music, art, therapists and counselors).
- Surveys in year-round districts^[7] indicate that between 60% to 90% of teachers prefer year-round education.
- Teachers may spend less classroom time reviewing material since less time elapses between school sessions
- Intercessions may be used for remediation courses and tutoring, or for enrichment activities
- Prevention of student and teacher burnout^[1]
- Decrease of teacher and student absences due to shorter instructional cycles^[3]
- Shorter breaks from school encourage students to stay involved with athletics and provide less time to become couch potatoes
- Higher student morale
- New York State Board of Regents study concluded that disadvantaged students lose 27% more learning over summer months than their peers.
Community
- For older students,employment may be easier to obtain as there is less competition.
- More flexible opportunities for family vacations and community events during off-peak (non-summer) seasons scattered throughout the year
- Less absences caused by vacations

[edit] Criticisms

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Opponents of year-round school cite:

Financial
- Less or no down time for building maintenance or construction
- Higher cost due to fewer windows of opportunity for these tasks
- Extra money may be needed for air conditioning to handle the summer heat.
Educational
- Teachers cannot settle in one permanent classroom due to having to rove between several classrooms. In addition to sharing rooms, they often share closets, and when they go off-track, they have to pack up their classroom and make room for the teacher and class that are coming on-track.
- More frequent breaks may decrease student retention of material, and may cause students to lose focus.
- Student burnout can increase due to the reduction in down time during the summer.
- Many students may need the 2-3 month break in order to get away from everyday social problems found in schools such as bullying and gossip.
- Some federal holidays have been omitted so that there can be a full 180 days in the school year.
Community
- Multi-tracking can cause family and community disintegration by placing people on different schedules.
- Extreme difficulty in students holding summer jobs and attending summer camps. (For some students it may be necessary to hold a full time summer job in order to save up money for college or a car.)
- Difficulty in scheduling school-wide events (student assemblies, open-house, PTA meetings, and other functions) because at least 1 track is out of school at any point in time.^{[citation needed]}