Is Year Round Schooling the Answer?

The concept of year-round schooling is nothing new to most people and “according to the Nationals Association for Year-Round Education, more than 2.3 million U.S. public school students attended year-round schools in the 2002-2003 school year. The number has steadily grown since the 1986-1987 school year, when only about 360,000 students were enrolled in year-round schools” (edweek.org). Although the numbers of students attending year-round schooling is growing the concept is still being met with both negative and positive feelings.

Most negative feelings towards year-round schooling stem from the economic stand point and the idea that taking away summer vacation would lessen family time and hinder out of school learning that some students experience over their summer vacation. Also, many opponents to year-round schooling believe that the extra schooling provides little to no improvements in student achievement.

Personally, I love the idea of year-round schooling. As it pertains to economics, opponents should think about multi-track year-round schooling. The primary purpose of this type of year-round schooling is to alleviate overcrowding in schools without having to build more and cost more to the taxpayers. In this kind of system students and teachers are divided into four groups about the same size. Each group then follows its own schedule so that not all groups are always in the building at once; only three groups are in the building at once while the other is on its vacation time. Following this four group scheduling increases the capacity of a school by 33 percent. This multi-track year-round schooling can help districts save significant amounts of money if it is used in place of building new school facilities (Shields & Oberg, 2000; Bradford, 1995; Brekke, 1992).

Another reason I love the idea of year-round schooling is because much research contends that year-round schooling has very positive effects on students who are “at-risk” for academic problems, such as children from low-income families or other students who might typically be low performers in school (Cooper,et al., 2003).

While I understand the negative feelings some have towards year-round schooling I also understand that I did not come into this field of study just for the long summers off but rather to increase student achievement. I have seen firsthand the benefits of year-round schooling within my own students. All of my students qualify for our district’s Special Education Extended School Year Program and every year I work that same program and I follow my students through to the next year as I am a looping multi-grade self-contained special education teacher. Every year my students remember more academically than some of their counterparts in regular education even. My class typically only has to spend the first week of school in review of the previous year while some grade-level peer groups spend the first two or three weeks in review of the pervious school year.

Ultimately, I don’t know if year-round schooling is “the answer.” But for some students and some districts in general, it sure does sound like a good step in the right direction.


References
Bradford, J.C., "Year-Round Education: Impact on Support Services, Transportation, Operation, Facilities, and Maintenance," in R. Fogarty (Ed.), Year-Round Education: A Collection of Articles, Arlington Heights, Ill.: IRI/Skylight Training and Publishing Inc., 1996.

Brekke, N.R., "Year-Round Schools: An Efficient and Effective Use of Resources," School Business Affairs, pp. 26-37, May 1992.

Cooper, H., Valentine, J.C., Charlton, K., Melson, A., "The Effects of Modified School Calendars on Student Achievement and on School and Community Attitudes," Review of Educational Research, 73 (1), pp. 1-52, 2003.

Shields, C.M. and Oberg, S.L., Year-Round Schooling: Promises and Pitfalls, Lanham, MD., Scarecrow Press Inc., 2000. Excerpts and ordering information from the authors' Web page. Stenvall, J.T., and Stenvall, M.J., "An Analysis of 2000 API Scores for California Public Schools on Traditional and Year-Round Calendars at the Elementary, Middle and High School Levels," National Association for Year-Round Education, 2001.

Year-Round Schooling. (2004). Retrived from www.edweek.org/ew/issues/year-round-schooling/