Back in the early ages, the idea of year-round school would be thought as completely insane, because the farming families depended on their children to be home during harvest time. Now in modern times, the term year-round school is becoming more and more common in the United States of America. Slowly the schools are changing the way they teach, from giving the students a long three month break to a shorter one month break during the summer. The change of America’s high schools to the year-round schedule benefits both the schools and the students because they still get breaks throughout the school year, the children are less likely to forget information, the children would have more time with the teachers to learn, and the parents would not have to pay for childcare during the long summer break.
One of the first concerns of a student when they think of year-round school is that they will be attending school five days a week, 52 weeks a year. That thought is incorrect. The year-round school schedule is still based on 180 days, which is the same amount as the traditional school year. The big difference between the two different systems is that the year-round school year have breaks that are more spread out throughout the year. Instead of have a long three month summer break from school, the year-round schools give a one month summer break. Although the summer break is shorter, the system allows the school to have longer breaks during the school year. One example of a year-round school schedule is from Balanced Calendar; the children would attend school for nine weeks, and then receive a 15 day break. These two week breaks that happen periodically throughout the year allow the children to relax, and not think about homew...
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...owledge, and our country will no longer be the one that makes technology and medical breakthroughs. The school systems need a change, and that change is a move from traditional to year-round schooling.
Works Cited
"Balanced Calendar vs. Traditional Calendar." Balanced Calendar vs. Traditional Calendar. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. .
Granderson, LZ. "We Need Year-round School to Compete Globally." CNN. Cable News Network, 11 May 2011. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. .
"Memory and the Importance of Review." Memory and the Importance of Review. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014. .
"Rankings of the States 2012 and Estimates of School Statistics 2013." Rss. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2014. .
Family vacations, pool memberships, and corn de-tasseling; these have been the experiences of traditional Midwestern summers. For centuries young American children have attended school during the winter months, during farming off seasons when their families could afford to be without them. Families have grown accustomed to a traditional school calendar that provides time for bonding throughout the year. Students have grown accustomed to an eight week break during the summer months where they are allowed to refresh their minds before returning for a new school year. Unfortunately, these traditional experiences and practices are now in jeopardy. In today’s race to improve student achievement, traditional school calendars have become a point of contention. Today more and more school districts and parents alike have begun to debate the pros and cons of an alternative school calendar.
adaptations need to be made back to the year-round school. If society has continuously adapted
One of the most talked about issues of schooling today, would be year round schooling. The program started as a new way to learn. The old way and still the way most schools calendar is set up was designed the way it is due to harvest times, when the United States was a farming country. There have been many studies done, and some schools have already implemented this program. The studies and the schools that have gone ahead and implemented the program have seen both good things and bad things in their findings. There will be both pros and cons for every issue, and some may see pros and cons differently. Year round schooling is the idea of attending school for an entire year, not all 365 days, but continuously throughout the year. Year round schooling operates on a different schedule to incorporate the same amount of classroom time as a typical school schedule has. The only difference is that the breaks are shorter, but there are more of them in year round schooling. This is the basis of most of the arguments for and against year round schooling.
The founders of the American public school system had a dream that all of America’s youth would have the opportunity to attend school in the best way possible for the times. The educational leaders of today must take up the same mission of providing the best school system imaginable for our modern era. Yearlong education is the solution to many problems that plague teachers, students, and school budgets.
The phrase “year-round” scares students and parents alike. Some argue that students attending school year-round will get so burnt out that the new schedule would be counterproductive. However, the term “year-round” is misleading. Students would not go to school non-stop twelve months out of the year. Instead, students would attend in blocks separated by short but frequent breaks (Hapka). The National Education Association gives insight to the block system:
The BC Ministry of Education recently allowed for flexibility in how school districts choose to organize their school calendars. BC School Districts currently follow a traditional school year calendar with students attending school approximately 190 days, most with a two week break in winter and spring and two months off during the summer months. “This model was very practical when the school calendar was designed to accommodate children with the needs of an agricultural economy” (qtd in Webb 5), and can be “described by some as outdated and irrelevant in today’s society” (Winter 401). A balanced school year calendar, also referred to as a modified school year and year round school, would maintain the same number of instructional days, but would evenly distribute breaks throughout the year. The literature and research available on the balanced school year is mostly American, with a few Canadian sources.
United States. National Center for Education Statistics. NAEP Data Tool v3.0. Web. 4 May 2009. .
There are various models of YRS that can be implemented, all of which are reconfigurations of the traditional, nine-month calendar. In some areas these models are known as alternative or modified calendars (Shields & Oberg, 2000) and they all have unique characteristics. Because of theses differences, school systems should spend some time analyzing which model will be best for their particular school; educators may find that some models work better than others depending on the school. Estimates on the exact number of year round schedules vary, although it has been estimated that at least 50 different scheduling patterns exist (Palmer & Bemis, 1999). The most common alternatives include the single track calendar and the multi-track calendar.
Year round schooling is becoming increasingly popular in the United States, and has shown positive academic benefits for students enrolled in year round schools. Many countries implement year round schooling, and academic ability of their students greatly surpasses those of the United States. Year round schooling, as well as increase in school days should be implemented in schools nationwide in the United States. The need for long summer vacations is non-existent, as society has become industrialized. Implementing year-round schooling, and increasing the number of school days will allow the United States to invest more time into education in order to grow and build academic success.
In conclusion, the advantages of year-round schooling are beneficial to all. If all schools did change to year round schooling, I believe we would be able to teach all the students without having to reteach skills from previous years, it could be done during intersessions. Year-round schooling benefits both the teachers and students. Teachers are able to reflect on their teachings and adjust in time before the next session would begin. The students would feel positive about themselves in school. With this change, we may even be able to accomplish No Child Left Behind.
Throughout time education has been considered a process that every so often must be improved. The education quality in the U.S. has declined over the years and people have been looking for a way to make improvements. A more recent proposal has been to go from a traditional nine-month schedule to an all year program. Supporters of year round school claim it gives the student a better education. However, the prospect of year round school is not beneficial to the taxpayers pocket, to the education a student receives, or to the people involved with the district.
Year round schooling sounds rigorous, but in fact it is just a change in schedule. The traditional school year was made with farming families in mind when the families needed their children to help with the crops in the summer. That is why the traditional school year has a three month period where kids are not in school over the summer. In today’s modern world, that does not make any sense because now a days, big huge machines take care of the farms and crops. Also, our economy does not depend on the crops and farms like it did back in the 20th century. The year round school year would still require the same amount of school days as the traditional school year, which is 180 days in the classroom. But instead of a prolonged summer break, it would have a 45-15 plan. 45 days in school and 15 days out of it, which translates to nine weeks in school and three weeks off. The breaks would include three weeks off in fall, winter, spring, and summer. These breaks would be in nine week intervals.
First, Long summer breaks is a problem for traditional schools. Year round school are schools that function on a 180 day system
Paul von Hippel, an author of study and research statistician in Sociology at The Ohio State University, says, “We found that students in year-round schools learn more during the summer, when others are on vacation, but they seem to learn less than other children during the rest of the year” (Grabmeier). Both schedules, year and traditional, have 180 days in their school year, the difference in scheduling is that the year-round schools have many short breaks throughout the school year, while the traditional gets a long summer break and a few breaks during the
To have year round schooling it much more expensive than a regular school year, to have school year round it, can cost “up to $1,300 more per student.” Also, most students in high school have a summertime job for those three months. But, if schooling was year round teens wouldn't be able to work in the summer. So the amount of times teens can work would decrease. In addition, kids would be much busier with school year around because of all the work and less free time to do whatever. For instance, kids with a lot of homework, projects and other things from school wouldn’t allow them to do things they like in their free time. For example, kids wouldn't be able to hang out with friends, family, play travel sports, or go on vacations because of the lack of free time they would get with school year