Searcy, AR. (LP) — Year-Round school is the practice of having students attend school without the traditional summer vacation made necessary by agricultural practices in the past.
Ten percent of US public schools are currently using a year-round calendar. A research spotlight on year round education discusses the year round calendar.
The basic year round calendar generates through a 45-15 ratio. This refers to students staying in school for 45 days but then getting 15 days of break. Students do not receive the traditional Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, Spring break, and summer vacation, but instead they have more frequent breaks throughout the entire year.
Jesse Huffman, student at Searcy High School states, “I believe that school year round would help advance kids, and we would have a higher graduation rate and kids would stop dropping out.”
Switching to year round schooling has many positive effects. One benefit is that teachers are then able to have a year-round job.
In addition, they have more time to plan lessons and class activities while not taking as long to reteach information that students are unable to retain over their summer break.
Huffman states, “Some pros of school year round would be early graduation, higher graduation rate, and better students. I do believe that summer does cause us to forget the things we need to know the most like math, science and more of the harder subjects that some people struggle with.”
Businesses that rely on summer leisure time are not in favor of year-round calendars. Summer camps and amusement parks often lead political opposition to year-round calendars, but some opposition is led by upper middle class parents who value summer vacations.
Rural areas rarely use year-round calendars because they conflict with farms’ need for youth labor in summer.
Gentry Smith, also a student at Searcy High School states, “Summer time is my absolute favorite and I think the majority of people’s favorite season. Summer break is good for us because I think we all need a break every now and then. Things would be hard without summer because when it feels good outside you are going to dread sitting in a desk all day.”
Most school students who attend a year round school find the breaks to be disruptive. Once you gear up for class, you have to gear back down again. Schools in fast-growing areas transition to year-round schedules as a way to ease overcrowding.
When that occurs, kids are placed on multi-tracks, and alternate tracking in and out of the school, a process that keeps the buildings in constant use.
Smith states, “Some benefits of year round school may be that you can graduate early and you would not forget everything like you do during the summer. You get your two weeks off and can enjoy the breaks that happen often.”
Year round school has the potential to offer many academic advantages to students on these tracks. By offering these advantages to students, it is possible to help them learn more effectively.
