Year-Round Schools

Rigdon Road Elementary,
Columbus Georgia. 95 percent of the students here are from low-income
families. Their tests scores are among the highest in the state.
Principal Phyllis Jones says, “Our test scores have gone
up tremendously in the last few years.”

One reason? Like thousands of schools around the nation, Rigdon
Road became a year-round school.

Principal Jones says, “We thought at that particular time
that our boys and girls did not need an entire summer out of school.
They were losing a lot of information that we were teaching.”

Research from the University of Missouri shows, over the summer
break, students typically forget one month of learning. Student
Alexus Mack says, “When you’re in a traditional school
year, it’s like, ‘I forgot that’, because you’re
out so long. And some people really don’t focus on their
education when they are out of school.”

Instead of summer vacation, students here get a three-week break,
four times a year. Teacher Grace Williams says, “There’s
less teacher burn-out. The students tend to retain more information.
We have to do less re-teaching.”

With four breaks a year, students who fall behind can get extra
help right away, without waiting until summer school. Principal
Jones says, “Those intersession breaks make the difference.
You can do so much more with a child when you have them right there
immediately.”

She says becoming a year-round school has another advantage. “That
keeps them off the street, so they are not vandalizing folks’ property,
and they are not doing things that otherwise, during the summer
months they have a tendency to…don’t have anything
to do, so they get into trouble.”

Principal Jones says it takes time to see the benefits of year-round
education. Rigdon Road’s standardized test scores did not start
to rise until the third year.

Some students’ worst nightmares may be coming true, but it may not
be as bad as they think. Year-round calendars are becoming more popular to
many school systems as an alternative to the traditional nine-month school
calendar. For many parents, however, this can be a very polarizing topic.
Those supporting the year-round calendar tend to point to the fact that students
will not lose the knowledge they’ve learned throughout the year if
they continue on with school. They also believe the schedule works better
for working parents. Parents opposed to year-round school believe the summer
break is good for the students because it gives them time to unwind and be
free of the pressures of school. They also point out that it’s unfair
for some school systems to implement the year-round program for elementary
and middle schools but not for high schools, especially when families have
students at the different schools.

When deciding whether to support year-round schooling for
your child, it is important to know the differences between it and the
traditional nine-month school year. Consider the following points developed
by experts at KidSource, ERIC Clearinghouse and the U.S. Department of
Education concerning year-round school years:

• Year-round education is a concept that reorganizes the school
  year to provide more continuous learning by spacing the long summer
  vacation into shorter, more frequent vacations throughout the year.
  Year-round schools may be on a single-track or multi-track schedule.
  A single-track schedule generally calls for an instructional year
  of 180 days, with short breaks (intersessions) interspersed throughout
  the school year. A multi-track schedule staggers the instructional
  and vacation/intersession periods of each track throughout the
  entire year, so that some students are receiving instruction while
  others are on vacation.
• In a single-track 45/15 design, the year is divided into four
  nine-week terms separated by three-week vacations or intersessions.
  All students and teachers attend school for nine weeks (45 days),
  followed by a three-week vacation (15 days). This sequence is repeated
  four times each year. Alternatively, in a multi-track 45/15 system,
  students are normally divided into four groups. During a 12-week
  period, all students receive nine weeks of instruction and three
  weeks of vacation, but only three of the four groups are in school
  at one time, while the fourth group is on vacation. When the vacation
  group returns, another group leaves for a three-week vacation.
• In the multi-track configuration, the enrollment in existing
  schools can be increased by one-third, or, alternatively, current
  class size can be reduced. Moreover, proponents point out money
  that would otherwise have been spent on construction of new schools
  may be utilized to pay additional salary to teachers who elect
  to extend their contract on the multi-track year-round schedule.
  Therefore, the annual income of these teachers can conceivably
  be increased by one-third, and the effective supply of teachers
  can be increased by one-third.

The Public School
Parent’s Network
KidSource
ERIC Clearinghouse
U.S. Department of Education