Year Round School?

In less than a week, summer vacation begins for students in Amherst public schools. I was speaking to a mother of two younger children who have already begun their summer break.  She said, “By 8:00am on the very first day of summer, they were already arguing”, she was beginning to worry about what was in store for her in the next 12 weeks.  What if summer vacation was not 12 weeks but rather three in July?  The idea of year round schooling is not new, but as the many weeks of “I’m bored.” and “There is nothing to do.” are about to be upon us, I began to wonder what a different calendar might look like.  

                Have you ever wondered why the school calendar gives your children the whole summer off?  The truth is that the current school calendar started so that families could use their children in the fields to help with planting, maintaining and harvesting on the farm. This is no longer necessary for most families, as we are no longer an agrarian society.  Our society has changed, why wouldn’t our educational system?     

There is no set way to handle year round school scheduling. Some districts have increased the number of days by as many as 35, some have not.  Some teach for six weeks and then take two week vacations; some follow a nine week on and three week off schedule.   Graduation could still be in June and there would still be a definitive beginning and end to each grade, but research shows that there is less information lost by students who only take 3 week breaks. Therefore, students who are on a year round calendar retain more information during breaks and require less review and are able to learn more over the length of the school year.

                During a year round calendar, kids are given a more “real life” view of education and therefore work. When I work with students, I tell them that right now school is their job.  You are in class for 30 hours per week and that homework makes up the other 10 hours to make it equivalent to a full time job.  However, this is a stretch for students because they know that regardless of how many hours they spend each day working, there will be a 10-11 week break for summer.  When was the last time your boss gave you an 11 week break just because it was hot outside? With a year round calendar, students would be able to experience the ebb and flow of career life and still experience more time for rejuvenation than a full time employee. I have been working with a student over the past year. We were recently discussing getting summer job. The student was arguing against getting a summer job because she wanted to “have a summer off before going to college”.  Our current system does not help students to understand the true nature of what it is like to have a career.

                By having longer breaks about as frequently as we do now, students are able to more fully regenerate and be more available for learning.  Think about the current schedule. From the first day of school until Holiday break, there are 17 weeks of school.  Because of the Holidays that are included in that break, students are not afforded much down time to do activities of their choosing and therefore not able to regenerate.  On a full year schedule, that begins in late July students would only have to remain focused for 9 weeks and have a 3 week break in September. That is 8 weeks shorter.  Parents know that by December, they do not have students anymore they have zombies.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have three weeks at the holidays to enjoy your family, rather than all the rushing around that happens now? Which leads to another benefit of year round schooling: families would no longer be constricted to traveling during peak times of the year.  Students would end up with four or five breaks in the school calendar, not just three, allowing for more flexibility in family travel.

                In Amherst schools, students are given many opportunities for enrichment through alternative methods of education such as travel and project based learning.  A full year schedule could allow for students to have access to even more opportunities of this nature.  For example, Wintercession could be for more than just the sophomore class. With four to five longer breaks, each class could take one and use part of that as their Wintercession and still have some time for vacation.  That being said, breaks could allow for other opportunities for enrichment such as longer opportunities to volunteer or shorter “classes” that students could take for credit recovery or early graduation, similar to the winter term than many colleges have adopted during the semester break.

                Year round schooling appears to have the highest benefit for students who are considered at risk, have special needs and students who are from lower income families.  Therefore, we should be able to reduce the amount of funds needed to support these students just by changing the calendar.  Now, I know that going to a year round calendar would likely cost more money, but money could also be saved by being able to reduce the amount of intervention needed to support these three groups of students.  Some school districts have found that they are not spending any extra money and still have increased annual school days by up to 40.

                You may be saying, what about Summer camp? Sports camp? Summer jobs?  In Wake County, North Carolina, camps are open all year to accommodate the school schedule. Traditional summer camps and sports camps will adjust to when students are out of school, if they don’t they will go out of business.  Also, since many of the jobs that teens get are because of the vacations (camp counselor, ice cream scooper, babysitter, etc.) those jobs will still exist because of demand during the breaks in the school schedule. Also, I know many parents who struggle for the two weeks at the beginning and end of summer when camps have not opened yet.  A year round schedule could alleviate some of that stress as vacation programming would need to be available year round as well.

                There are a number of pros and cons to changing our educational system, but in a time when education is in the forefront of many minds from parents to politicians, thinking outside the box and coming at education from a whole new point of view, might just be what is needed….and it would likely cut down on, “I’m Bored!” on the first day of summer vacation.