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The very thought of sending kids to school year-round makes some parents cringe. They balk at the idea of kids attending schools with no summer break. They question the value of a continuous school year interspersed with several short breaks. While the schedule is definitely not what the majority of adults grew up with, it's not nearly as onerous as some people think. Rather than giving kids less time off, a year-round schedule offers the same 180 days of schooling as the traditional calendar, created long ago to ensure children were home to help their parents harvest crops.
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Kids in year-round schools attend classes for anywhere from six to nine weeks in a row, broken up by two- to four-week vacations. That, say some educators, keeps the learning process ongoing with minimal disruption. A Duke University study even suggested kids attending year-round schools are at a slight advantage, because they don't forget what they learned during the long summer break.

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.

Frequent breaks are a mainstay of year-round schooling, but they aren't for everyone. Patricia McCracken, who grew up attending a year-round school in Virginia Beach, Virginia, says she found the two-week breaks, which occurred every six weeks at her school, to be disruptive. "It was really hard to get involved in the work because as soon as you geared up, you had to gear back down again."

Mary Brown, a middle-school teacher in Wake County (where three-week breaks occur every nine weeks), says she doesn't see that as a problem at her school. "Our schedule offers the kids a break from school right when they need it," she says. Earlier this year, after their first three-week break, she says, the kids seemed refreshed. "They didn't have the bored, glazed-over look of kids who had been in school for weeks on end with no break in sight."

Juggling different school schedules is one of the toughest problems parents of children in both year-round and traditional schools face. Many high schools don't employ a year-round calendar because of sports schedules. And teens want to be able to take summer jobs.

The year-round schedule can make finding appropriate childcare a problem too. Because her mom was a teacher in a traditional school, McCracken says, "It meant my sister and I were basically latchkey kids for two or three years because it was impossible to find a babysitter for two weeks every six weeks." As year-round schooling becomes more common, however, communities are meeting the demand by offering track-out programs for kids who aren't in school.

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The very thought of sending kids to school year-round makes some parents cringe. They balk at the idea of kids attending schools with no summer break. They question the value of a continuous school year interspersed with several short breaks.

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Research Spotlight on Year-Round Education

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Research Spotlight on Year-Round Education

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NEA Reviews of the Research on Best Practices in Education

The most popular form of year-round education is the 45-15 plan, where students attend school for 45 days and then get three weeks (15 days) off. The usual holiday breaks are still built into this calendar. Two other ways to organize a school calendar are the 60-20 and the 90-30 plans. Perhaps, the most important facet of year-round education is how it is implemented. Schools may operate on a single-track schedule where all students are on the same calendar and get the same holidays off, or a multi-rack schedule, which has groups of students attending school at different times with different vacations. Multi-tracking is popular because it allows schools to enroll more students than buildings would normally hold.

Some arguments for year-round education include:

Students tend to forget a lot during the summer break, so a shorter time away from school might increase retention rates.

It's a more efficient use of school space because otherwise buildings are unoccupied during the summer.

Remediation can occur when it is most needed - during the school year.

Some critics of year-round education contend:

Band and other extracurricular programs suffer from problems with scheduling out-of-school practices and competitions.

If an entire district does not adopt a year-round calendar, parents could have students at different schools at different schedules.

Studies have been inconclusive to its academic benefits.

Is year-round education a reform that will greatly increase student achievement or just another attempt to oversimplify some of the concerns with education? Here is what the research offers on year-round education:

All-Day, All-Year Schools
In this article, Ruy Teixeira (The Century Foundation, 2004) shows that when year-round education is accompanied by enrichment and remedial programs and other extensions of the year - as opposed to simply stretching out the school year, but with smaller breaks - achievement effects tend to be positive.

Student Segregation and Achievement Tracking in Year-Round Schools
Student Segregation and Achievement Tracking in Year-Round Schools - Authors Ross E. Mitchell and Douglas E. Mitchell present this case study, which reveals substantial differences in the characteristics of students and teachers across the four attendance tracks of eight YRE schools in one large California school district.

Alternative Calendars: Extended Learning and Year-Round Programs
Authors E. A. Palmer and A. E. Bemis provide a comprehensive updated review of the literature and research on effective models of year-round education.

Research on Year-Round Education
Educational researchers Carolyn M. Shields and Steven L. Oberg of the University of British Columbia visited schools and districts in the United States and Canada, examined student achievement results on standardized tests, and surveyed parents, teachers, and administrators to assess the impact of year-round schools.

Year-Round Education
Author Tyler Weaver explores the possible benefits and the points to consider before adopting year-round education. (ERIC Digest, Number 68)

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Research Spotlight on Year-Round Education

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Most schools in the United States operate on the 10-month calendar that was established when America was still an agrarian country. But times have changed and many people propose doing away with this outdated system and moving to year-round education.

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Author: Heidi Brown